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Keeping kids in school: modelling school-based testing and quarantine strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia
BACKGROUND: In 2021, the Australian Government Department of Health commissioned a consortium of modelling groups to generate evidence assisting the transition from a goal of no community COVID-19 transmission to ‘living with COVID-19’, with adverse health and social consequences limited by vaccinat...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10272722/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37333560 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1150810 |
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author | Abeysuriya, Romesh G. Sacks-Davis, Rachel Heath, Katherine Delport, Dominic Russell, Fiona M. Danchin, Margie Hellard, Margaret McVernon, Jodie Scott, Nick |
author_facet | Abeysuriya, Romesh G. Sacks-Davis, Rachel Heath, Katherine Delport, Dominic Russell, Fiona M. Danchin, Margie Hellard, Margaret McVernon, Jodie Scott, Nick |
author_sort | Abeysuriya, Romesh G. |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: In 2021, the Australian Government Department of Health commissioned a consortium of modelling groups to generate evidence assisting the transition from a goal of no community COVID-19 transmission to ‘living with COVID-19’, with adverse health and social consequences limited by vaccination and other measures. Due to the extended school closures over 2020–21, maximizing face-to-face teaching was a major objective during this transition. The consortium was tasked with informing school surveillance and contact management strategies to minimize infections and support this goal. METHODS: Outcomes considered were infections and days of face-to-face teaching lost in the 45 days following an outbreak within an otherwise COVID-naïve school setting. A stochastic agent-based model of COVID-19 transmission was used to evaluate a ‘test-to-stay’ strategy using daily rapid antigen tests (RATs) for close contacts of a case for 7 days compared with home quarantine; and an asymptomatic surveillance strategy involving twice-weekly screening of all students and/or teachers using RATs. FINDINGS: Test-to-stay had similar effectiveness for reducing school infections as extended home quarantine, without the associated days of face-to-face teaching lost. Asymptomatic screening was beneficial in reducing both infections and days of face-to-face teaching lost and was most beneficial when community prevalence was high. INTERPRETATION: Use of RATs in school settings for surveillance and contact management can help to maximize face-to-face teaching and minimize outbreaks. This evidence supported the implementation of surveillance testing in schools in several Australian jurisdictions from January 2022. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10272722 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-102727222023-06-17 Keeping kids in school: modelling school-based testing and quarantine strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia Abeysuriya, Romesh G. Sacks-Davis, Rachel Heath, Katherine Delport, Dominic Russell, Fiona M. Danchin, Margie Hellard, Margaret McVernon, Jodie Scott, Nick Front Public Health Public Health BACKGROUND: In 2021, the Australian Government Department of Health commissioned a consortium of modelling groups to generate evidence assisting the transition from a goal of no community COVID-19 transmission to ‘living with COVID-19’, with adverse health and social consequences limited by vaccination and other measures. Due to the extended school closures over 2020–21, maximizing face-to-face teaching was a major objective during this transition. The consortium was tasked with informing school surveillance and contact management strategies to minimize infections and support this goal. METHODS: Outcomes considered were infections and days of face-to-face teaching lost in the 45 days following an outbreak within an otherwise COVID-naïve school setting. A stochastic agent-based model of COVID-19 transmission was used to evaluate a ‘test-to-stay’ strategy using daily rapid antigen tests (RATs) for close contacts of a case for 7 days compared with home quarantine; and an asymptomatic surveillance strategy involving twice-weekly screening of all students and/or teachers using RATs. FINDINGS: Test-to-stay had similar effectiveness for reducing school infections as extended home quarantine, without the associated days of face-to-face teaching lost. Asymptomatic screening was beneficial in reducing both infections and days of face-to-face teaching lost and was most beneficial when community prevalence was high. INTERPRETATION: Use of RATs in school settings for surveillance and contact management can help to maximize face-to-face teaching and minimize outbreaks. This evidence supported the implementation of surveillance testing in schools in several Australian jurisdictions from January 2022. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-06-02 /pmc/articles/PMC10272722/ /pubmed/37333560 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1150810 Text en Copyright © 2023 Abeysuriya, Sacks-Davis, Heath, Delport, Russell, Danchin, Hellard, McVernon and Scott. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Public Health Abeysuriya, Romesh G. Sacks-Davis, Rachel Heath, Katherine Delport, Dominic Russell, Fiona M. Danchin, Margie Hellard, Margaret McVernon, Jodie Scott, Nick Keeping kids in school: modelling school-based testing and quarantine strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia |
title | Keeping kids in school: modelling school-based testing and quarantine strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia |
title_full | Keeping kids in school: modelling school-based testing and quarantine strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia |
title_fullStr | Keeping kids in school: modelling school-based testing and quarantine strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia |
title_full_unstemmed | Keeping kids in school: modelling school-based testing and quarantine strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia |
title_short | Keeping kids in school: modelling school-based testing and quarantine strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia |
title_sort | keeping kids in school: modelling school-based testing and quarantine strategies during the covid-19 pandemic in australia |
topic | Public Health |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10272722/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37333560 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1150810 |
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