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Sparks, R. S. J., Aspinall, W. P., Brooks-Pollock, E., Cooke, R. M., Danon, L., Barclay, J. 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6122-197X, Scarrow, J. H. and Cox, J.
(2021)
A novel approach for evaluating contact patterns and risk mitigation strategies for COVID-19 in English primary schools with application of structured expert judgement.
Royal Society Open Science, 8 (1).
ISSN 2054-5703
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Abstract
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.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | covid19,expert judgement,schools,transmission,general ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1000 |
| Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences |
| UEA Research Groups: | Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Geosciences |
| Related URLs: | |
| Depositing User: | LivePure Connector |
| Date Deposited: | 05 Mar 2021 00:44 |
| Last Modified: | 23 Oct 2022 02:16 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/79384 |
| DOI: | 10.1098/rsos.201566 |
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