May 19, 2020

expert reaction to preprint looking at COVID-19 in schools in Australia

A preprint, a non-published paper posted by the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance, looked at COVID-19 in schools in Australia.

Prof Matthew Snape, Associate Professor in Paediatrics and Vaccinology, Oxford Vaccine Group, University of Oxford NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, said:

“The data from Australia is one of the key pieces of research to inform the discussions about the risks of re-opening schools.  The most striking finding is there were only 2 secondary cases of COVID-19 amongst 863 close contacts of 18 staff and students with COVID-19.  These data are consistent with a case study from France showing no secondary cases from over 150 school contacts of a symptomatic COVID-19 child.

“There are some limitations to this non-peer reviewed paper, especially that only one third of participants were actively swabbed to look for the virus, with the remaining participants assumed to be COVID-19 negative based on a lack of symptoms.  Also, little information is provided on how the initial participants were diagnosed, the nature of their symptoms and how long they were in school.

“Nonetheless, together these studies suggest minimal transmission of the novel coronavirus in the school environment, and provide provisional support for the re-opening of schools in a cautious and carefully monitored manner.

“There are some differences between the situations in Australia and the UK.  In terms of the science the low number of infections in Australia is a positive – the 863 contacts were unlikely to have had any other exposure to the COVID-19 virus, allowing clear tracking of the consequences of exposure to the index cases.  But the low numbers of cases doesn’t undermine the central finding – an infected child has low risk of transmitting the virus to others.

“What is different is the number of children in a school who might be carrying the infection.  Based on ONS data approximately 1 in 300 English 2 to 19 year-olds had the virus at end April/start of May, but even if they were in school the available data suggest they would be unlikely to be ‘super-spreaders’ of the virus to their classmates, their teachers or their families even if a small number of transmissions could occur.”

http://ncirs.org.au/sites/default/files/2020-04/NCIRS%20NSW%20Schools%20COVID_Summary_FINAL%20public_26%20April%202020.pdf

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:

www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

Declared interests

None received.