An analysis of school absences in England during the COVID-19 pandemic.
An analysis of school absences in England during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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在Covid-19-19大流行期间，英格兰的学校缺席分析。
DOI：
10.1186/s12916-021-01990-x
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发表时间：
2021-06-07
期刊：
影响因子：
9.3
通讯作者：
Tildesley MJ
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Southall E;Holmes A;Hill EM;Atkins BD;Leng T;Thompson RN;Dyson L;Keeling MJ;Tildesley MJ
于二零二零年初，英国引入导致COVID-19感染的SARS-CoV-2病毒，导致引入多项控制政策以减少疾病传播。作为这些限制措施的一部分，学校在3月对所有学生关闭（弱势儿童和主要工人子女除外），然后在6月对某些年龄组重新开放。最后，所有学生都在9月回到了教室。在此，我们分析了2020年底因COVID-19感染而导致的缺课数据，以及随着社区引入其他措施，缺课情况如何随时间变化。我们利用教育部教育设置数据库的数据，并研究如何在小学和中学的学生和教师缺席的变化。我们的结果显示，自9月学校复课后，因COVID-19感染而缺勤的人数稳步上升。在11月的封锁期间，教师的病例有所下降，特别是在以前处于三级的地区，这是当时控制的最高水平。在11月封锁的前两周，中学生的病例有所增加，然后下降。自分级制度实施以来，小学因确诊感染而缺课的人数（明显）低于中学。12月，我们观察到东南部和伦敦中学环境中每所学校的缺勤人数大幅上升，但在其他地区或小学环境中没有观察到这种上升。我们推测，在这些地区的新变异的可传播性增加可能导致了中学病例的增加。最后，我们观察到，在大多数地区，社区病例与学校病例之间存在正相关关系，有微弱证据表明，学校病例落后于周边社区病例。我们的结论是，没有显著的证据表明，学校在推动社区传播中发挥了重要作用，可能需要仔细监测，因为学校重新开放，以确定与开放学校社区发病率相关的影响。
The introduction of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 infection, in the UK in early 2020, resulted in the introduction of several control policies to reduce disease spread. As part of these restrictions, schools were closed to all pupils in March (except for vulnerable and key worker children), before re-opening to certain year groups in June. Finally, all school children returned to the classroom in September. Here, we analyse data on school absences in late 2020 as a result of COVID-19 infection and how that varied through time as other measures in the community were introduced. We utilise data from the Department for Education Educational Settings database and examine how pupil and teacher absences change in both primary and secondary schools. Our results show that absences as a result of COVID-19 infection rose steadily following the re-opening of schools in September. Cases in teachers declined during the November lockdown, particularly in regions previously in tier 3, the highest level of control at the time. Cases in secondary school pupils increased for the first 2 weeks of the November lockdown, before decreasing. Since the introduction of the tier system, the number of absences with confirmed infection in primary schools was observed to be (markedly) lower than that in secondary schools. In December, we observed a large rise in the number of absences per school in secondary school settings in the South East and London, but such rises were not observed in other regions or in primary school settings. We conjecture that the increased transmissibility of the new variant in these regions may have contributed to this rise in secondary school cases. Finally, we observe a positive correlation between cases in the community and cases in schools in most regions, with weak evidence suggesting that cases in schools lag behind cases in the surrounding community. We conclude that there is no significant evidence to suggest that schools are playing a substantial role in driving spread in the community and that careful monitoring may be required as schools re-open to determine the effect associated with open schools upon community incidence.