School-age Vaccination, School Openings and Covid-19 diffusion

TL;DR

This study examines how school openings influence Covid-19 spread in Sicily and finds that vaccination among school-age children significantly reduces the growth rate of cases following school reopening.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence on the causal impact of school-age vaccination in mitigating Covid-19 diffusion after school openings.

Findings

School opening increased Covid-19 case growth in 2020/21.

Vaccination reduced the growth rate of cases after school opening.

Without vaccination, ICU occupancy would have increased by 19%.

Abstract

Do school openings trigger Covid-19 diffusion when school-age vaccination is available? We investigate this question using a unique geo-referenced high frequency database on school openings, vaccinations, and Covid-19 cases from the Italian region of Sicily. The analysis focuses on the change of Covid-19 diffusion after school opening in a homogeneous geographical territory. The identification of causal effects derives from a comparison of the change in cases before and after school opening in 2020/21, when vaccination was not available, and in 2021/22, when the vaccination campaign targeted individuals of age 12-19 and above 19. The results indicate that, while school opening determined an increase in the growth rate of Covid-19 cases in 2020/2021, this effect has been substantially reduced by school-age vaccination in 2021/2022. In particular, we find that an increase of approximately 10% in the vaccination rate of school-age population reduces the growth rate of Covid-19 cases after school opening by approximately 1.4%. In addition, a counterfactual simulation suggests that a permanent no vaccination scenario would have implied an increase of 19% in ICU beds occupancy.