A study by pediatric researchers says widespread school closings last spring likely saved tens of thousands of lives from Covid-19 and prevented many more coronavirus infections.
The New York Times reports that the study, published by JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, focuses on a six-week period in the spring and concluded that school closure “may have been associated with approximately 1.37 million fewer cases of Covid-19 over a 26-day period and 40,600 fewer deaths over a 16-day period.”
The findings come amid a debate on whether, when and how to reopen schools.
Outside experts cautioned that the effect of school closings is extremely difficult to predict because of unknowns like how infectious children are and because of the difficulty in separating out the effect of school closures from other measures that states took to control the virus. In addition, early in the pandemic, testing was especially limited and spotty, raising questions about how well the number of confirmed cases reflected actual infections.
The authors of the study acknowledged that their findings are not broadly applicable today because before closings in the spring, there were no precautions, such as smaller classes and the wearing of masks, that are being recommended for reopening.
Dr. Katherine Auger, an associate professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and the lead author of the study, says she believes that the conclusions of the study supported the idea that decisions on reopening schools should strongly consider the prevalence of Covid-19 cases in the community.
She says the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines “emphasize making sure that the community numbers are reasonable before trying to open schools, and I think this manuscript sort of bolsters that a bit.”
A co-author, Dr. Samir Shah, a professor of pediatrics and director of the division of hospital medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, emphasizes the complicated balancing act in deciding whether to reopen schools. “It’s not simply a decision of, what is the risk of Covid,” he said. “It also has to factor in what are the benefits versus harms of not having children in school in person.”
