A new threshold reveals the uncertainty about the effect of school opening on diffusion of Covid-19

TL;DR

This paper identifies a critical threshold in school contact rates that determines whether school openings influence Covid-19 spread, supported by theoretical analysis and data-driven studies, highlighting the importance of strict measures or vaccination.

Contribution

It introduces a threshold-based framework to understand the impact of school openings on Covid-19 dynamics, reconciling conflicting study results and emphasizing control measures.

Findings

The influence of school openings depends on crossing a specific contact rate threshold.

Strict control measures are necessary to keep schools open without increasing pandemic risk.

Vaccination of children is crucial when the transmission rate approaches the extinction threshold.

Abstract

We aim at clarifying the controversy about the effects of school openings or closures on the course of the Covid-19 pandemic. The mathematical analysis of compartmental models with subpopulations shows that the in-school contact rates affects the overall course of the pandemic only above a certain threshold that separates an influence phase from a non-influence one. The threshold, that we calculate via linear approximation in several cases, seems to appear in all contexts, including outbreaks or new strains upsurge, lockdowns, and vaccination campaigns excluding children, albeit with different values. Our theoretical findings are then confirmed by several data-driven studies that have previously identified the phase transition in specific cases. Specific outcomes of this study are: opposite conclusions reached by studies of the same or similar situations might depend on, possibly small, differences in modeling or in parameter estimation from the very noisy Covid-19 data, that result in identifying different phases; it is possible to keep schools open at any stage of the Covid-19 pandemic, but suitably strict rules must be applied at all times or else this becomes highly detrimental to virus containment efforts; as the threshold during vaccination turns out to correspond to the internal transmission rate that would lead to virus extinction if the school population was isolated, the needed strict control can be sustained only for very brief periods; as a result, either schools will have to face a prolonged closure or children need to be vaccinated as well.