Our article has now appeared online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Citation: Marc Diederichs, Reyn van Ewijk, Ingo Isphording, Nico Pestel (2022), Schools under mandatory testing can mitigate the spread of SARS-CoV-2, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(26) e2201724119, doi: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2201724119
Significance
We provide causal evidence on the impact of opening schools in a situation under virus variants and substantial vaccination rates in the adult population. We show that schools under regular and mandatory rapid testing of the studentship mitigated the growth in case numbers leading to Germany’s fourth pandemic wave in autumn 2021. Our results have important implications for the design of future nonpharmaceutical interventions to mitigate the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 and comparable future diseases. Keeping schools open under mandatory testing rules can provide a means to track infection rates. Our results suggest that school closures, given substantial economic and societal costs, should be thought of as the “last resort,” even if inevitable at some point.
Abstract
We use event study models based on staggered summer vacations in Germany to estimate the effect of school reopenings after the summer of 2021 on the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Estimations are based on daily counts of confirmed coronavirus infections across all 401 German counties. A central antipandemic measure in German schools included mandatory rapid testing multiple times per week. Our results are consistent with mandatory testing contributing to the containment of the viral spread. We find a short-term increase in infection rates right after summer breaks, indicating the uncovering of otherwise undetected (asymptomatic) cases through the testing. After a period of about 2 wk after school reopenings, the growth of case numbers is smaller in states that reopened schools compared with the control group of states still in summer break. The results show a similar pattern for older age groups as well, arguably as a result of detected clusters through the school testing. This means that under certain conditions, open schools can play a role in containing the spread of the virus. Our results suggest that closing schools as a means to reduce infections may have unintended consequences by giving up surveillance and should be considered only as a last resort.
For more details, see the full article here.
An earlier version appeared as an IZA working paper. It can be found here.
And for a German summary, see here.