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The government have published evidence considered by SAGE, ‘Interdisciplinary Task and Finish Group on the Role of Children in Transmission: Modelling and behavioural science responses to scenarios for relaxing school closures’, on relaxing school closures.
Prof Matthew Snape, Associate Professor in Paediatrics and Vaccinology, Oxford Vaccine Group, University of Oxford NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, said:
“This report from the SAGE sub-group models the impact of 8 different scenarios for school re-opening on the transmission of the novel coronavirus in the broader community. While recognising the large amount of uncertainty in this area, it makes the important point that the impact of school re-opening is likely to be relatively small compared to maintenance of other social distancing measures in the broader community. It also provides a useful insight into what scenarios are being considered, with the option of an alternating ‘week-on/week-off’ for two halves of each school year receiving particular attention as a way of interrupting onward transmission cycles.
“Underlying all this needs to be the recognition that COVID-19 disease in children is, fortunately, rare and the information we have suggests this would remain the case for all scenarios of school reopening, especially in the younger school years.”
All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:
www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19
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