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Meta-Analysis
. 2021 Aug 18:66:1604076.
doi: 10.3389/ijph.2021.1604076. eCollection 2021.

Opening Schools and Trends in SARS-CoV-2 Transmission in European Countries

Alessandra Buja  1 , Federico Zabeo  1 , Vittorio Cristofori  1 , Matteo Paganini  2 , Tatjana Baldovin  1 , Riccardo Fusinato  3 , Giovanna Boccuzzo  3 , Silvia Cocchio  1 , Silvia Coretti  4 , Vincenzo Rebba  4 , Maria Parpinel  5
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Opening Schools and Trends in SARS-CoV-2 Transmission in European Countries

Alessandra Buja et al. Int J Public Health. .

Abstract

Objectives: Benefits of school attendance have been debated against SARS-CoV-2 contagion risks. This study examined the trends of contagion before and after schools reopened across 26 countries in the European Union. Methods: We compared the average values of estimated R t before and after school reopening, identifying any significant increase with a one-sample t-test. A meta-analysis and meta-regression analysis were performed to calculate the overall increase in R t for countries in the EU and to search for relationships between R t before schools reopened and the average increase in R t afterward. Results: The mean reproduction number increased in 16 out of 26 countries. The maximum increase in R t was reached after a mean 28 days. We found a negative relationship between the R t before school reopening and its increasing after that event. By 45 days after the first day of school reopening, the overall average increase in R t for the European Union was 23%. Conclusion: We observed a significant increase in the mean reproduction number in most European countries, a public health issue that needs strategies to contain the spread of COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19; education; pandemic; public health; schools.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Rt–90% Highest Density Interval (gray area)–of Italy, France and Hungary. Opening schools and trends in SARS-CoV-2 transmission in European countries, Europe, 2020.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Average significant increase in reproduction number (R t ) compared to the days before schools reopened. Opening schools and trends in SARS-CoV-2 transmission in European countries, Europe, 2020.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Mean reproduction number (Rt)-ratio and weights for each country and overall. Opening schools and trends in SARS-CoV-2 transmission in European countries, Europe, 2020.
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Regression line between the initial reproduction number (Rtin) for a given country j and the weighted logarithm of its corresponding mean increasing (ln(RtR¯)×ωj). Opening schools and trends in SARS-CoV-2 transmission in European countries, Europe, 2020.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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