Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2021 Jun 1;13(2):257-278.
doi: 10.3390/pediatric13020035.

COVID-19 and School: To Open or Not to Open, That Is the Question. The First Review on Current Knowledge

Francesco Busa  1 , Flaminia Bardanzellu  1 , Maria Cristina Pintus  1 , Vassilios Fanos  1 , Maria Antonietta Marcialis  1
Affiliations
Review

COVID-19 and School: To Open or Not to Open, That Is the Question. The First Review on Current Knowledge

Francesco Busa et al. Pediatr Rep. .

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an unprecedented closure of schools in terms of duration. The option of school closure, SARS-CoV-2 initially being poorly known, was influenced by the epidemiological aspects of the influenza virus. However, school closure is still under debate and seems unsupported by sure evidence of efficacy in the COVID-19 era. The aim of our narrative review is to discuss the available literature on SARS-CoV-2 spread among children and adolescents, in the school setting, trying to explain why children appear less susceptible to severe disease and less involved in viral spreading. We also tried to define the efficacy of school closure, through an overview of the effects of the choices made by the various countries, trying to identify which preventive measures could be effective for a safe reopening. Finally, we focused on the psychological aspects of such a prolonged closure for children and adolescents. SARS-CoV-2, children, COVID-19, influenza, and school were used as key words in our literature research, updated to 29 March 2021. To our knowledge, this is the first review summarizing the whole current knowledge on SARS-CoV-2 spreading among children and adolescents in the school setting, providing a worldwide overview in such a pandemic context.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; adolescents; children; influenza virus; molecular swab; non-therapeutic intervention; psychological aspects; recommendations; secondary transmission; variants.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

References

    1. Ludvigsson J.F., Engerström L., Nordenhäll C., Larsson E. Open Schools, Covid-19, and Child and Teacher Morbidity in Sweden. N. Engl. J. Med. 2021;384:669–671. doi: 10.1056/NEJMc2026670. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Jackson C., Vynnycky E., Hawker J., Olowokure B., Mangtani P. School closures and influenza: Systematic review of epidemiological studies. BMJ Open. 2013;3:e002149. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2012-002149. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. [(accessed on 19 May 2021)]; Available online: https://www.miur.gov.it/
    1. Istituto Nazionale di Statistica. [(accessed on 10 March 2021)]; Available online: https://www.istat.it.
    1. Cowling B.J., Perera R.A., Fang V.J., Chan K.H., Wai W., So H.C., Chu D.K., Wong J.Y., Shiu E.Y., Ng S., et al. Incidence of influenza virus infections in children in Hong Kong in a 3-year randomized placebo-controlled vaccine study 2009–2012. Clin. Infect. Dis. 2014;59:517–524. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciu356. - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources