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In Campania, the President of the Region, Vincenzo De Luca closes schools and universities until October 30. A measure defined as “very serious” by the Minister of Education, Lucía Azzolina.
Is it really necessary to close schools to counteract the increase in the contagion curve? On Twitter, Fabio Sabatini, associate professor at La Sapienza University in Rome, responds as follows: “School closures are helpful in countering the spread of the coronavirus, Now that we have learned the essential measures to contain the infection? We still cannot know for sure, but the first empirical evidence suggests NO ”.
This is what the university professor writes:
In a recently published article in the IZA series, not yet peer-reviewed, Ingo Isphording, Marc Lipfert, and Nico Pestel (2020) estimated the effect of the reopening of schools in Germany.
The authors find no positive effect of reopening schools on infections. The estimates, on the other hand, suggest that the effect was negative. Rather than accelerate the epidemic, the reopening may have helped contain it, according to the authors.
Three weeks after reopening, confirmed cases decreased by 0.55 per 100,000 population (27% of a standard deviation). The effect mainly affects patients up to 34 years of age. For those over 60 years there is no statistically significant effect.
The authors suggest 3 mechanisms:
1) Schools have reopened in very different conditions than they had been closed. The use of masks is mandatory, the classes are strictly separated and the students and teachers are spaced apart. Without safety measures in place, schools can lead to an increase in flu-like illnesses, as shown by Adda (2016). But masks and spacing can neutralize the problem if implemented well
2) The identification of positive cases between students and teachers implies the rapid isolation of their contacts, allowing the interruption of chains of contagion that, without the monitoring carried out through the school, would not have been interrupted.
3) The reopening of schools has caused a drastic change in the behavior of parents, who have become more cautious. In fact, with schools open, becoming infected has a higher cost, because it implies the exclusion of children from classes and the loss of hours of learning (for children) and work (for parents). Even contracting a simple flu is more expensive, because it implies the obligation of isolation until the result of the buffer.
Clearly, it all depends on the ability of the school to ensure safe teaching and the health system to ensure testing, contact tracing and treating patients in isolation.
Closing schools doesn’t necessarily help. In fact, it can aggravate the epidemiological situation in the short term and poverty and inequality in the long term. It is better to close other businesses, especially those that can be compensated for damages, improve transportation, wear masks and behave wisely.
Postscript: The thread can be found unwound here https://t.co/83IgOsoJVz
Thank you for your patience.– Fabio Sabatini (@FabbioSabatini) October 16, 2020
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