Anonymous wrote:
Fine. Post the good studies that demonstrate that short term school closures have a significant impact on reducing community covid spread. You are advocating for them so strongly that you must have evidence.
I have advanced STEM degrees and am fine reading and analyzing studies. I don’t need a useless speculative interview. We have two years of school closures. There should be many studies showing that short term school closures reduce community spread in a measurable way.
What studies out there conclusively demonstrate that closing schools for two weeks in January will have beneficial impact?
NP.
1. Notice how Mr. "advanced STEM degrees" is already moving the goalposts to make it impossible to satisfy his request for studies? They need to be academic studies, not just summaries from WHO or CDC or other experts. And the need to be "good" studies, which apparently is an advanced STEM term meaning ones that PP likes. And then they need to "conclusively" show what will happen if we close schools "for two weeks in January." I suspect they also need to be based on data from the Washington DC area, and have been published in the six weeks since Omicron first appeared. All this seems designed to allow him to dismiss the evidence that disagrees with his prior conclusions.
2. The interview another poster provided has several links to academic papers addressing the topic. Below are links to others. I'm sure PP will find them unsatisfactory though, because they don't support his predetermined conclusion.
Strategies for mitigating an influenza pandemic
"School closure during the peak of a pandemic can reduce peak attack rates by up to 40% .... Given enough drugs for 50% of the population, household-based prophylaxis coupled with reactive school closure could reduce clinical attack rates by 40–50%."
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature04795
Nonpharmaceutical Interventions Implemented by US Cities During the 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic
"School closure and public gathering bans activated concurrently represented the most common combination implemented in 34 cities (79%); this combination had a median duration of 4 weeks (range, 1-10 weeks) and was significantly associated with reductions in weekly EDR."
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/208354
The impact of regular school closure on seasonal influenza epidemics: a data-driven spatial transmission model for Belgium
"An extension of the Christmas holiday of 1 week may further mitigate the epidemic. Changes in the way individuals establish contacts during holidays are the key ingredient explaining the mitigating effect of regular school closure."
https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-017-2934-3
Association Between Statewide School Closure and COVID-19 Incidence and Mortality in the US
"In this US population–based time series analysis conducted between March 9, 2020, and May 7, 2020, school closure was associated with a significant decline in both incidence of COVID-19 (adjusted relative change per week, −62%) and mortality (adjusted relative change per week, −58%)."
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2769034
Timing of Community Mitigation and Changes in Reported COVID-19 and Community Mobility ― Four U.S. Metropolitan Areas, February 26–April 1, 2020
"Public policies to increase compliance with social distancing, including limits on mass gatherings,
school closures, business restrictions, and stay-at-home or shelter-in-place orders
appear to be associated with decreases in mobility. Policies related to specific locations or community organizations (e.g., mass gatherings, schools, restaurants, and bars) were often implemented within one or two weeks of mid-March, likely a result of increased awareness and concern about the potential scope of the outbreak in the absence of mitigation. This awareness and concern also likely impacted the public, potentially leading to further decreases in mobility."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7755061/
Scientific and ethical basis for social-distancing interventions against COVID-19
The combined intervention, in which quarantine, school closure, and workplace distancing were implemented, was the most effective: compared with the baseline scenario of no interventions, the combined intervention reduced the estimated median number of infections by 99·3% (IQR 92·6–99·9) when R0 was 1·5, by 93·0% (81·5–99·7) when R0 was 2·0, and by 78·2% (59·0–94·4) when R0 was 2·5.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30190-0/fulltext
Simulating the effect of school closure during COVID-19 outbreaks in Ontario, Canada
Our study demonstrates that while SC (school closure) will mitigate disease transmission during the COVID-19 pandemic when combined by other social distancing measures, it may have markedly lower effectiveness in reducing attack rates and hospitalizations compared to SI (social isolation). [Ed: In other words, close schools and also keep your kids at home!]
https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-020-01705-8
Substantial Impact of School Closure on the Transmission Dynamics during the Pandemic Flu H1N1-2009 in Oita, Japan
"School closure is considered as an effective measure to prevent pandemic influenza. ...
School closure was an effective intervention for mitigating the spread of influenza and should be implemented for more than 4 days. School closure has a remarkable impact on decreasing the number of infected students at the peak, but it does not substantially decrease the total number of infected students [
because of a lack of social isolation during school closure]."
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0144839
The impact of unplanned school closure on children’s social contact: rapid evidence review
"
During a major infectious disease outbreak, school closure has the potential to slow the spread of infection. However, the effects of a closure will be attenuated if children continue to mix."
https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.13.2000188;jsessionid=MD6pjqtq_JZDJAf4Z3ZG6kXw.i-0b3d9850f4681504f-ecdclive
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