• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
  • We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.

New study suggests that school closures and bans on public gatherings had no effect on containing covid-19

Status
Not open for further replies.
hydrophilic attack

hydrophilic attack

Member
Oct 25, 2017
21,466
Sweden
Shelter in place orders and restaurant closures, on the other hand, seemed effective

The study can be found here:


From the conclusions:
We estimated the separate and combined impact of four widely adopted social distancing policies. Both SIPOs and closures of restaurants/bars/entertainment-related businesses substantially slowed the spread of COVID-19. We did not find evidence that bans on large events and closures of public schools also did, though the confidence intervals cannot rule out moderately sized effects. Interestingly, two recent papers on the effect of social distancing restrictions on mobility found the same pattern as we did in terms of which restrictions mattered and which ones did not, suggesting that null effects of gathering bans and school closures on case growth are at least plausible
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The study was reported on by motherjones, who included a helpful graph summarizing the results.

www.motherjones.com

School closure vs. restaurant closure: Which is most effective?

www.motherjones.com www.motherjones.com
blog_covid19_countermlwj99.gif

I've been saying for awhile that many experts don't think school closures have much of an effect and it's nice to have some data that seemingly confirm it. Policymakers should focus on the most effective measures
 
Ebnas

Ebnas

Member
May 15, 2019
366
DiipuSurotu said:
In the US? It's because too many people ignored the order
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

So US schools were holding underground classes in defiance of the lockdown?

In terms of the discrepancy between 'public gatherings' and 'restaurant closures', the virus doesn't do very well in the sunlight and to Vit-D-rich subjects, which is probably why Florida in general has gotten off easy with their lax quarantine procedures.
 
LukeOP

LukeOP

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,749
Social distancing doesn't matter if your aren't wearing a mask. Being 6 feet away from someone isn't far enough without protective gear.
 
AndyD

AndyD

Mambo Number PS5
Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,602
Nashville
I am not understanding the graph maybe. Are there any areas that closed schools but did none of the other things?
 
ExtremelyBitter

ExtremelyBitter

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,944
Important from the Discussion section of the study:
We cannot rule out the possibility that these null results are due to statistical imprecision, but it is also possible that both policies may displace social interaction rather than reducing it. For example, school closures may have led families to continue social interactions outside of the school setting, such as at day care centers or parks. Google mobility data through April 5, 2020 show increases of 10 percent or more in visits to parks in 28 states.25 A new study finds that schools are only slightly more dangerous than parks and playgrounds for COVID-19 transmission, supporting this explanation.26 Alternatively, school closures primarily affect children and the vast majority of children experience mild symptoms and therefore may not be included in confirmed cases.27 While asymptomatic children can pass the virus to adults who become more severely ill, our results imply that the extent to which this led to confirmed cases did not change when schools were closed.

Similarly, official group events may have simply been replaced by informal gatherings. Alternatively, official prohibitions may have been largely redundant since the largest events (such as college and professional sports) were already being cancelled due to CDC guidance or other information.

Also note that school closures and large event bans occurred prior to the implementation of SIPOs, meaning substitute types of social gatherings were still allowed. Our results, therefore, should not be interpreted as a forecast about what would happen if schools were reopened or certain large gatherings were allowed while other aspects of SIPOs remained in place.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I'm not familiar enough with this kind of analysis to really dig in, but they provide a number of caveats to these conclusions that will, I assume, be lost when Trump starts parroting CLOSING THESE THINGS DID NOTHING in a few days.
 
Combo

Combo

Banned
Jan 8, 2019
2,437
LukeOP said:
Social distancing doesn't matter if your aren't wearing a mask. Being 6 feet away from someone isn't far enough without protective gear.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
If only more people realized that you catch the virus by breathing.

BTW go become a school teacher and see how many illnesses you catch within the first few weeks. Then you will know why schools had to be closed.
 
Captain Smoker

Captain Smoker

Member
Oct 30, 2017
1,720
There's also this finnish study (which says otherwise for some points):


Some information from Finland about the results from their contact tracing in the Helsinki area.
  • Public events were a big spreader as expected.
  • Most situations where spread occurs are similar. Close contact or staying in the same place indoors for a longer time.
  • Most transmission now are within households, from one of the adults bringing the infection home. A lot of the time the entire household gets sick but not always, children are usually the ones staying healthy. Unclear if this is because they don't get infected or because they are asymptomatic.
  • Asymptomatic children getting tested very rarely test positive, when schools were still open they found one infection in a student at the beginning of March. 4 classes were quarantined and zero other cases came up. Appears to be that kids have a harder time getting infected as well as milder symptoms when infected.
  • When schools were still open very few cases happened there and almost always in teachers.
  • People not being able to work from home are clearly overrepresented, as to be expected.
  • Health care personnel is not overrepresented compared to other parts of the working population.
  • Very few cases of infected people in turn infecting care givers and only single digit confirmations of patient -> doctor transmission.
  • Construction workers have been the most surprising area of overrepresentation.
  • Grocery store employees are surprisingly not overrepresented at all. Assumption is that they take hygiene seriously and keep social distancing in the stores.
  • Restaurants have a small transmission risk for people at the same table, but no transmissions to other tables have been found at this point. This is data from before the restaurants were closed for table seating.
  • Zero confirmed infections from people that have got it from packages/food/other objects. All cases in Finland come from people that have human contact.
  • Probably very small chance of being infected outside as long as some distance is being kept. Indoors has a much higher chance.
Article in Finnish here: https://www.hs.fi/tiede/art-2000006495503.html
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
www.resetera.com

Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) resources and discussion thread (Discussion guidelines in OP) COVID - OT

Booya! Tuning into the PM's live address right now.
www.resetera.com www.resetera.com
 
ArkkAngel007

ArkkAngel007

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
4,999
DiipuSurotu said:
In the US? It's because too many people didn't follow the order
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Was going to say this. You need shelter-in-place alongside to keep numbers down, else people are just going to go elsewhere and keep spreading. Combined with many places disregarding assembly restrictions, lack of enforcement, and the supposedly Constitutional-and-likely-to-turn-into-Biblical aversion to wearing masks, spread will keep occurring.

For a study discussing these factors in conjunction, they certainly seemed to not consider that aspect much or at least emphasize it outside of a brief caveat conclusion to where this study and others like it are going to be abused to push for opening schools, despite that running contrary to the whole point of the "effective measures" that shelter in place falls under.
 
Lulu

Lulu

Saw the truth behind the copied door
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
26,680
OP has a habit of trying to justify Sweden's shitty response
 
OP
OP
hydrophilic attack

hydrophilic attack

Member
Oct 25, 2017
21,466
Sweden
fragamemnon

fragamemnon

Member
Nov 30, 2017
6,846
Bans on large gatherings might have already been baked in, people in my area were starting to voluntarily spin down those activities in January/early February. And large outdoor events that aren't packed stadiums and such seem somewhat safe.

Over and over the refrain is clear prolonged indoor, crowded spaces, in the home to family members, and office environments seem to be attack vectors that the disease uses.
 

99nikniht

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,352
Lulu said:
OP has a habit of trying to justify Sweden's shitty response
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Hmmm okay, I guess that explains why I'm not understanding how opening schools doesn't spread Covid when classes are indoors. Mass gatherings, outdoors vs indoors, will vary greatly in the transmission of Covid/common cold/influenza.

The article doesn't seem to make a case that opening up schools doesn't spread covid, it seems to suggest that they have no evidence that it does, and go ahead and say that their data doesn't predict that it won't either.

Common sense suggest that covid spreads like influenza. Schools spreads the flu like crazy, end of story.
 

Deleted member 14518

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
3,731
lol i was just reading this article on my feed:

Just one week after a third of French schoolchildren went back to school in an easing of the coronavirus lockdown, there has been a worrying flareup of about 70 COVID-19 cases linked to schools, the government said Monday.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

www.ctvnews.ca

70 cases of COVID-19 at French schools days after reopening

Just one week after a third of French schoolchildren went back to school in an easing ofthe coronavirus lockdown, there's been a worrying flareup of about 70 COVID-19 cases linked to schools.
www.ctvnews.ca www.ctvnews.ca

I know in my own country school closures was critical to stopping the spread of the virus. But its no good in isolation. Social distancing has to be implemented as well.
 
Book One

Book One

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,822
hmm. Strange.

A large gathering (the Houston rodeo) iirc helped kick off the cases in the Houston area.

likewise, anyone who has ever had kids in school knows how illnesses spread like wildfire among students and educators alike.

schools here closed very early, too. Like mid/early March. I don't think there were many confirmed cases in the state at that time.
 
Commedieu

Commedieu

Banned
Nov 11, 2017
15,025
99nikniht said:
Hmmm okay, I guess that explains why I'm not understanding how opening schools doesn't spread Covid when classes are indoors. Mass gatherings, outdoors vs indoors, will vary greatly in the transmission of Covid/common cold/influenza.

The article doesn't seem to make a case that opening up schools doesn't spread covid, it seems to suggest that they have no evidence that it does, and go ahead and say that their data doesn't predict that it won't either.

Common sense suggest that covid spreads like influenza. Schools spreads the flu like crazy, end of story.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

My daughter was sick like every few weeks. Kids are dirty. A lot of parents just let their kids go to school sick.

How is that not effective that you're shutting down children getting it, to then spread to others?
 

Deleted member 2809

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
25,478
Jon Carter

Jon Carter

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
5,746
That doesn't seem possible. People being in close contact with each other is how the virus spreads. Limiting any of those situations will slow the spread.
 
Afrikan

Afrikan

Member
Oct 28, 2017
16,990
hydrophilic attack said:
Seems like the results of that study disagrees about public gatherings, but agrees that schools are not really an important infection vector
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Do kids not transmit it at all? Let's just keep it simple first.

Can kids transmit it to each other?... can those kids transmit it to their parents? Do those kids have grand parents who live at home with the family?

Their parents might have underlying conditions.
 
Reeks

Reeks

Self-requested ban
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,326
I get that proper graphs are difficult for lay people to grasp but line graphs with huge errors are beyond misleading veering on unethical. They should have to show an additional graph underneath that shows raw data or box and whisker plots etc. That shit looks like it was made in Excel.
 
thisismadness

thisismadness

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,447
I'm confused. So its saying that the SIPO was the most effective -- but if kids are still going to school and people are still having "large gatherings" church, wouldn't that completely undermine the SIPO and diminish its effectiveness?
 
Stooge

Stooge

Member
Oct 29, 2017
11,238
I'm confused. If shelter-in-place was effective than doesn't that include bans on large gatherings by its nature?
 
SpottieO

SpottieO

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,615
Uhhh didn't Italy's outbreak really go into hyperdrive because of a super spreading event at a large basketball game?
 
metalslimer

metalslimer

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
9,566
I would be very skeptical of concluding what the OP did from this study. I don't see how its possible SIP orders could affect something but large gathering bans wouldnt. That's basically contradictory.

Schools are another issue entirely but we still need more data on that as well.
 
23qwerty

23qwerty

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,500
schools seem like an ideal breeding ground for this, how could closing them possibly be ineffective?
 
Deepwater

Deepwater

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,349
Captain Smoker said:
There's also this finnish study (which says otherwise for some points):



www.resetera.com

Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) resources and discussion thread (Discussion guidelines in OP) COVID - OT

Booya! Tuning into the PM's live address right now.
www.resetera.com www.resetera.com
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The piece about the spread happening largely within households is exactly what they found in China/Wuhan. Once you have everybody on lockdown, the spread was mostly limited to people bringing it back to the home. Thats why people who were found to be positive were immediately quarantined in a designated facility so that they wouldn't spread it to other people living at their house.

In fact, its one really significant piece that, to my knowledge, was only done in the handful of East/SEA countries. I have not heard of any NA/EU countries having quarantine facilities, particularly for people who were asymptomatic or light symptoms. Maybe someone who's been following EU knows better than me?
 
Lost Lemurian

Lost Lemurian

Member
Nov 30, 2019
4,297
ExtremelyBitter said:
Important from the conclusion of the study:


I'm not familiar enough with this kind of analysis to really dig in, but they provide a number of caveats to these conclusions that will, I assume, be lost when Trump starts parroting CLOSING THESE THINGS DID NOTHING in a few days.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think #26 is very important, here.

Kids don't wash their hands, their noses are always running, they don't cover their mouths when they cough, they're constantly touching each other and standing close to each other. The idea that this wouldn't spread the virus just as much as bars and restaurants beggars belief.

Children seem to be extremely resistant to COVID 19, though. So, most wouldn't show symptoms, and thus wouldn't be tested. The data is bad, because you're not getting an accurate picture of infections, because we're doing so little testing.
 
OP
OP
hydrophilic attack

hydrophilic attack

Member
Oct 25, 2017
21,466
Sweden
Reeks said:
I get that proper graphs are difficult for lay people to grasp but line graphs with huge errors are beyond misleading veering on unethical. They should have to show an additional graph underneath that shows raw data or box and whisker plots etc. That shit looks like it was made in Excel.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The original source has figures with error bars
 
Status
Not open for further replies.