It may be safe to open schools with Covid prevention in place

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-10-29 11:22

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A US study found that opening schools for face-to-face learning did not often lead to more Covid-19 infection. However, this did not hold for some regions in southern states where mitigating measures were more limited. A separate Japanese study found no significant differences between infection rates in communities that kept schools shut, and similar communities that opened up schools. In Japan, schools that allowed in-class learning generally had strict mitigation practices. However both studies took place before the Delta variant became widespread.

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Research , Web page US study

Research , Web page Japan study

Journal/
conference: Nature Medicine

Organisation/s: VA Boston Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research, USA; Gakushuin University, Japan

Funder: US research: W.B.E. is the site principal investigator for a study funded by Gilead (funds to institution). E.M.S.-P. receives funds from the Gilead’s FOCUS program. Japan research: This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI (grant no. JP19K21683). We obtained part of the survey data from the MEXT.

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