Abstract
Objective: To examine the association between elementary school opening status (ESOS) and changes in pediatric COVID-19 incidence. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study of US counties with school districts with ≥500 elementary school students. The main exposure was ESOS in September, 2020. The outcome was county incidence of COVID-19. Age-stratified negative binomial regression models were constructed using county adult COVID-19 incidence. Results: Among 3220 US counties, 618 (19.2%) were remote, 391 (12.1%) were hybrid, 2022 (62.8%) were in-person. In unadjusted models, COVID-19 incidence after school started was higher among children in hybrid or in-person counties compared with remote counties. After adjustment for local adult incidence, among children aged 0 to 9, the incidence rate ratio of COVID-19 (IRR) compared with remote counties was 1.01 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.93–1.08) in hybrid counties and 0.79 (95% CI 0.75–0.84) in in-person counties. Conclusions: Counties with in-person learning did not have higher rates of COVID-19 after adjustment for local adult rates.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 667-670 |
| Number of pages | 4 |
| Journal | Academic Pediatrics |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 1 2022 |
Keywords
- COVID-19
- in-person learning
- school reopening
- school safety
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Pediatrics, Perinatology, and Child Health
