Open AccessA novel approach for evaluating contact patterns and risk mitigation strategies for COVID-19 in English primary schools with application of structured expert judgement
Author(s) -
R S J Sparks,
Willy Aspinall,
Ellen Brooks-Pollock,
Roger Cooke,
León Da,
Jenni Barclay,
Jane H. Scarrow,
James H. Cox
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
royal society open science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.84
H-Index - 51
ISSN - 2054-5703
DOI - 10.1098/rsos.201566
Subject(s) - social contact , covid-19 , social distance , judgement , range (aeronautics) , contact tracing , medicine , confidence interval , psychology , medical education , family medicine , engineering , social psychology , disease , pathology , political science , infectious disease (medical specialty) , law , aerospace engineering
Personal contacts drive COVID-19 infections. After being closed (23 March 2020) UK primary schools partially re-opened on 1 June 2020 with social distancing and new risk mitigation strategies. We conducted a structured expert elicitation of teachers to quantify primary school contact patterns and how contact rates changed upon re-opening with risk mitigation measures in place. These rates, with uncertainties, were determined using a performance-based algorithm. We report mean number of contacts per day for four cohorts within schools, with associated 90% confidence ranges. Prior to lockdown, younger children (Reception and Year 1) made 15 contacts per day [range 8.35] within school, older children (Year 6) 18 contacts [range 5.55], teaching staff 25 contacts [range 4.55] and non-classroom staff 11 contacts [range 2.27]. After re-opening, the mean number of contacts was reduced by 53% for young children, 62% for older children, 60% for classroom staff and 64% for other staff. Contacts between teaching and non-teaching staff reduced by 80%. The distributions of contacts per person are asymmetric with heavy tail reflecting a few individuals with high contact numbers. Questions on risk mitigation and supplementary structured interviews elucidated how new measures reduced daily contacts in-school and contribute to infection risk reduction.