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Important prospective study of #COVID19 in British Schools during June and July. Key findings plus caveats:
1/ https://twitter.com/thelancet/status/1336453504081256465
1/ https://twitter.com/thelancet/status/1336453504081256465
Setting: “Educational settings opened when COVID-19 incidence was low, and only in regions with low community transmission. These educational settings implemented stringent infection control measures with strict protocols for bubble sizes” 2/
Results
1. transmission between children was generally low with most cases associated with primary contact at homes. School outbreaks did happen particularly in primary school, but were generally small, though testing was generally limited to close contacts not entire cohorts
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1. transmission between children was generally low with most cases associated with primary contact at homes. School outbreaks did happen particularly in primary school, but were generally small, though testing was generally limited to close contacts not entire cohorts
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2. Cases in staff were most often associated with a staff case contact and outbreaks just among staff occurred at a significant rate
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3. Case rates and risk of outbreaks was sensitive to the community burden with risk rising as community burden went up.
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4. Case burden was higher among staff compared to children emphasizing the importance of focusing on prevention: student 
student, staff student, staff staff. Staff staff needs more emphasis.
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student, staff student, staff staff. Staff staff needs more emphasis.6/
My take away-
Schools can open and prevent in school transmission with mitigation methods in place BUT these results need to be replicated in communities of high burden & rapid rising rates before assumed generalizable to the current context in much of the US
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Schools can open and prevent in school transmission with mitigation methods in place BUT these results need to be replicated in communities of high burden & rapid rising rates before assumed generalizable to the current context in much of the US
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Clear need to emphasize prevention between staff. Access to surveillance testing (ideally with quick result turnaround) is invaluable- the authors acknowledge that because only known close contacts of were tested they may have underestimated outbreaks.
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The time for launching similar studies in the US was August and September- ongoing efforts to collect this information retrospectively are very helpful but subject to biases that were avoided in this study design.
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Hoping more of these prospective analyses during periods of higher spread are released soon. If not attempts to open schools in communities with high transmission will be particularly dependent on access to school wide surveillance testing.
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Lastly- vaccines, particularly for teachers, but also for students (eventually) will be the best way to ensure safety for everyone on campus and get kids back to normal routines.
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