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Article Dans Une Revue Eurosurveillance Année : 2023

Minimizing school disruption under high incidence conditions due to the Omicron variant in France, Switzerland, Italy in January 2022

Résumé

Background. As record cases due to the Omicron variant were registered in Europe in early 2022, schools remained a vulnerable setting suffering large disruption. Aim. Through mathematical modelling, we compared the school protocols of reactive screening, regular screening, and reactive class closure implemented in France, in Baselland (Switzerland), and in Italy, respectively, and assessed them in terms of case prevention, testing resource demand, and schooldays lost. Methods. We used a stochastic agent-based model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in schools accounting for withinclass and across-class contacts from empirical contact data. We parameterized it to the Omicron BA.1 variant to reproduce the French Omicron wave in January 2022. We simulated the three protocols to assess their costs and effectiveness for varying peak incidence rates in the range experienced by countries in Europe. Results. We estimated that at the high incidence rates registered in France during the Omicron BA.1 wave in January 2022, the reactive screening protocol applied in France required higher test resources compared to the weekly screening applied in Baselland (0.50 vs. 0.45 tests per student-week), but achieved considerably lower control (8% vs. 21% of peak reduction). The reactive class closure implemented in Italy was predicted to be very costly, leading to more than 20% student-days lost. Conclusions. At high incidence conditions, a large and unplanned demand in testing resources results from reactive screening protocols, for marginal control of school transmissions. Comparable or lower resources would be more efficiently used through weekly screening. Our findings can be used to define incidence levels triggering school protocols and optimizing their cost-effectiveness.
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Dates et versions

hal-03971697 , version 1 (03-02-2023)

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Elisabetta Colosi, Giulia Bassignana, Alain Barrat, Bruno Lina, Philippe Vanhems, et al.. Minimizing school disruption under high incidence conditions due to the Omicron variant in France, Switzerland, Italy in January 2022. Eurosurveillance, 2023, ⟨10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2023.28.5.2200192⟩. ⟨hal-03971697⟩
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