In-person school reopening and the spread of SARS-CoV-2 during the second wave in Spain

• Published in: Frontiers in Public Health
• Main Authors: Raül Tormos, Pau Fonseca i Casas, Josep Maria Garcia-Alamino
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-10-01
• Subjects: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; in-person school reopening; non-pharmaceutical intervention; interrupted time-series analysis
• Online Access: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.990277/full

We investigate the effects of school reopening on the evolution of COVID-19 infections during the second wave in Spain studying both regional and age-group variation within an interrupted time-series design. Spain's 17 Autonomous Communities reopened schools at different moments in time during September 2020. We find that in-person school reopening correlates with a burst in infections in almost all those regions. Data from Spanish regions gives a further leverage: in some cases, pre-secondary and secondary education started at different dates. The analysis of those cases does not allow to conclude whether reopening one educational stage had an overall stronger impact than the other. To provide a plausible mechanism connecting school reopening with the burst in contagion, we study the Catalan case in more detail, scrutinizing the interrupted time-series patterns of infections among age-groups and the possible connections between them. The stark and sudden increase in contagion among older children (10–19) just after in-person school reopening appears to drag the evolution of other age-groups according to Granger causality. This might be taken as an indirect indication of household transmission from offspring to parents with important societal implications for the aggregate dynamics of infections.