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Originally Posted by KCChiefsFan88
Your "common sense approach" vs. findings from a research study conducted by scientists from the University College London.
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-Preprint studies report that school closures were initiated nationally across mainland China in late January, 2020—which manifested as delaying the restarting of schools after the Chinese New Year holidays—as part of a broader series of control measures during the COVID-19 epidemic. No data are available on the effectiveness of school closure as there was little variation in timing of closures (closures were reportedly applied in all Chinese cities uniformly and without delay) and school closures were part of a broad range of quarantine and social distancing measures. Both of these studies concluded that the overall package of quarantine and social distancing was effective in reducing the epidemic in mainland China,
although the relative contribution of school closures was not assessed.
Preprint studies of actions in Hong Kong related to COVID-19 noted that a 4-week school closure was initiated across the city on Feb 1, 2020, approximately 1 week after the first cases were identified in Hong Kong. School closures were implemented at the same time as a number of other stringent social distancing measures, with school closures extended initially to March, 2020, then to April, 2020.
Collectively, these measures were considered to have reduced the*R*below 1, controlling the spread of the outbreak.
As in mainland China, no data were available from either paper on the effect of school closures separate from other measures. Cowling and colleagues noted that the social distancing measures implemented during the COVID-19 outbreak reduced community transmission by 44%, which was much greater than the estimated 10–15% reduction in influenza transmission conferred by school closures implemented alone during the 2009 pandemic in Hong Kong."
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Basically they excluded any studies on Covid-19 because they were not designed to study the isolated effect of school closures, so they took their data from the 2003 SARS outbreak studies.
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This Review provides the first summary of data on school closures and other school social distancing practices during coronavirus outbreaks. We were able to include only nine published studies and seven non-peer-reviewed studies. We decided to include unreviewed studies as data would not otherwise be available on COVID-19, although findings were interpreted with caution. Except for one modelling study, none of the included studies were designed to specifically examine the effectiveness of school distancing measures. Thus, data provided on the effect of school measures were of relatively low quality.
We identified a remarkable dearth of policy-relevant data on the implementation of school social distancing during coronavirus outbreaks. This finding is perhaps not surprising for the rapidly emerging COVID-19 pandemic, but previous coronavirus outbreaks such as SARS and MERS provide limited information about the effectiveness of school closures and no data on cost-effectiveness. No data on other less disruptive school social distancing practices during coronavirus outbreaks were identified."
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Did you read the article?