According to a comprehensive study from Germany, the risk of CoV transmission in schools with compulsory masks was lower than in others. Vaccination of adults also had a positive impact on infection risks in schools. This is probably mainly due to the vaccination of the teachers
For the comprehensive Studywhich has just been published in the specialist journal “PLOS Medicine”, the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research (HZI) and the University of Cologne have compiled and analyzed CoV infection notification data from all over Germany.
The contribution of school contacts to infections in the population turned out to vary greatly: at the peak of the omicron wave with the sublines BA.1 and BA.2 at the beginning of 2022, up to 20 percent of the infections in the population were through when schools were open Contacts at school have been established, says Berit Long, Head of Clinical Epidemiology at the HZI. “At other times this was significantly less.” The researchers analyzed data on this topic from the beginning of 2021 to April 2022.
Effective Measures
Overall, the results suggested that measures such as wearing masks in schools “are effective in reducing infections in the school environment – but of course an actual causal relationship cannot ultimately be proven in such observational studies,” emphasizes Lange.
The study also showed that the risk of infection among contact persons in their own household increased significantly more than in the school environment with the emergence of virus variants with a higher transmission risk. “Presumably, measures such as wearing masks, reducing the size of study groups and distance learning as well as the test regime in schools played a role,” explains Torben Heinsohn from the HZI.
