Was School Closure Effective in Mitigating Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)? Time Series Analysis Using Bayesian Inference

Abstract

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic are causing significant damages to many nations. For mitigating its risk, Japan’s Prime Minister called on all elementary, junior high and high schools nationwide to close beginning March 1, 2020. However, its effectiveness in decreasing disease burden has not been investigated. Methods: We used daily data on the report of COVID-19 and coronavirus infection incidence in Japan until March 31, 2020. Time series analysis were conducted using Bayesian method. Local linear trend models with interventional effect were constructed for number of newly reported cases of COVID-19, including asymptomatic infections. We considered that the effects of intervention start to appear 9 days after the school closure; i.e., on March 9. Results: The intervention of school closure did not appear to decrease the incidence of coronavirus infection. If the effectiveness of school closure began on March 9, mean coefficient α for effectiveness of the measure was calculated to be 0.08 (95% credible interval -0.36 to 0.65), and the actual reported cases were more than predicted, yet with rather wide credible interval. Sensitivity analyses using different dates also showed similar results. Conclusions: School closure carried out in Japan did not show the effectiveness to mitigate the transmission of novel coronavirus infection.

Student Attitudes Towards Online Education during the COVID-19 Viral Outbreak of 2020: Distance Learning in a Time of Social Distance

“…Lawanto et al, 2014, found higher performing students accessed course content significantly more than lower performers, illustrating that engagement and goal setting is vital for online learning. Further research should be conducted on the effectiveness of school closings for diminishing the spread of COVID-19, as has been found to be minimal in Japan (Iwata et al, 2020). The results of this study are limited to the initial outbreak and reflect opinions of students having to re-adjust their remaining semester to exclusive online learning, and are likely biased, given the short amount of time students were given to prepare for distance learning.…”

Do school closures and school reopenings affect community transmission of COVID-19? A systematic review of observational studies

“…Included studies are described in Table 1. All studies [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] reported the effect of school closures on community transmission of SARS-CoV-2, and one study 21 additionally examined school re-opening. All studies used data from national Government sources or international data repositories, and reported on the first half of 2020.…”

From apparent to true – from frequency to distributions (II)

“…Compared with the usual ARIMA (auto regressive integrated moving average) time series model, the Bayesian inference-based approach produced more accurate forecasts, which is a prerequisite for timely action and planning of epidemic control strategies. Iwata et al ( 8 ) focused on the impact of school closures on mitigating the spread of the coronavirus in Japan. For this purpose, they performed a time series analysis with Bayesian statistics and found that school closures did not reduce the incidence of infection.…”