A new study conducted by researchers in Germany found that the reopening of schools in that country did not increase the number of positive Covid19 cases.
Some areas actually saw a decrease in cases relative to areas that had not yet reopened. Three weeks after reopening, the study found, there were 0.55 fewer cases per 100,000 inhabitants per day in areas that have reopened than in areas that remain closed (about 27% of the difference between reopened and closed areas before the summer break).
“This result certainly ran counter our own priors,” says Ingo Isphording, Senior Research Associate from the IZA Institute of Labor Economics, which conducted the study.
The results show that in areas where schools re-open with strict hygiene measures, case numbers do not necessarily increase, despite disproportionate media coverage to single arising cases.
“200 kids in quarantine might make a good newspaper headline, but they just show that our system of containing the spread in schools actually works,” says Isphording.
You can read the study in its entirety here.
Photo by U.S. Army Europe via Flickr