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Swiss school closures cut Covid spread: new study

Switzerland's decision in the spring to shutter schools was one of the most effective measures in reducing mobility and thus also transmission of Covid-19, a study showed on Sunday.

Published: 10 January 2021 15:22 CET
Swiss school closures cut Covid spread: new study
School girls in Lausanne on their way to school at the end of Switzerland's first lockdown. Photo: Fabrice Coffrini / AFP
Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, ETH, determined that the closure of Swiss schools last March was responsible for cutting mobility by more than a fifth.
   
“School closures reduced mobility by 21.6 percent,” Stefan Feuerriegel, an ETH professor of management information systems who headed the study, told AFP in an email.
   
“School closures reduce mobility, (which) then reduces new cases” of Covid-19, he said.
 
   
In a tweet, he said his team had analysed some 1.5 billion movements in Swiss telecommunication data between February 10 and April 26 last year to evaluate the impact on mobility as various anti-Covid measures were introduced.
 
   
In decentralised Switzerland, its 26 cantons introduced measures at different paces before a country-wide partial lockdown, including school closures, was ordered on March 16.
   
Schools across the country remained closed for about two months before gradually opening up again.
 
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The study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, found school closures ranked third in terms of reducing mobility.
   
At the top of the list was a ban on gatherings of more than five people, which was seen slashing mobility by 24.9 percent, and the closure of restaurants, bars and non-essential shops, which caused people to move about 22.3 percent less, the study shows.
   
Feuerriegel said it was not surprising that school closures had such a big impact on people's movements.
   
“If schools are closed, we can expect a large change in behaviour,” he said, pointing out that “not only will kids stay home, but sometimes it also requires their parents to change their mobility as well.”
   
School closures have been among the most controversial measures introduced around the world to help rein in the pandemic.
   
Children are far less likely to develop severe illness from Covid-19 than older people, but it remains unclear how much they transmit the virus.   
 
The ETH study does not address that, but indicates that school closures can significantly reduce transmission by prompting people to move about and mingle less.
   
“Our analysis confirms school closure as a measure to slow the spread, through reduced mobility,” Feuerriegel said.

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COVID-19

Public Health Agency recommends two Covid doses next year for elderly

Sweden's Public Health Agency is recommending that those above the age of 80 should receive two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine a year, once in the spring and once in the autumn, as it shifts towards a longer-term strategy for the virus.

Published: 23 December 2022 10:53 CET
Public Health Agency recommends two Covid doses next year for elderly

In a new recommendation, the agency said that those living in elderly care centres, and those above the age of 80 should from March 1st receive two vaccinations a year, with a six month gap between doses. 

“Elderly people develop a somewhat worse immune defence after vaccination and immunity wanes faster than among young and healthy people,” the agency said. “That means that elderly people have a greater need of booster doses than younger ones. The Swedish Public Health Agency considers, based on the current knowledge, that it will be important even going into the future to have booster doses for the elderly and people in risk groups.” 

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People between the ages of 65 and 79 years old and young people with risk factors, such as obesity, diabetes, poor kidney function or high blood pressure, are recommended to take one additional dose per year.

The new vaccination recommendation, which will start to apply from March 1st next year, is only for 2023, Johanna Rubin, the investigator in the agency’s vaccination programme unit, explained. 

She said too much was still unclear about how long protection from vaccination lasted to institute a permanent programme.

“This recommendation applies to 2023. There is not really an abundance of data on how long protection lasts after a booster dose, of course, but this is what we can say for now,” she told the TT newswire. 

It was likely, however, that elderly people would end up being given an annual dose to protect them from any new variants, as has long been the case with influenza.

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