The impact of school reopening on COVID-19 dynamics in Bogotá, Colombia

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, has affected millions of people around the world. In Colombia, 1.65 million cases and 43,495 deaths were reported in 2020. The exacerbation of poverty is a critical consequence of the pandemic, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Schools have been closed in many places around the world to slow down the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and particularly in Latin America. In Bogotá, Colombia, public schools were closed since March 2020 and stayed closed for in-person instruction for the rest of the year, except for some schools that were open as a pilot for testing policies. To reconcile these two priorities in health and poverty, we estimated the impact of school reopening for in-person instruction in 2021. We used an agent-based model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, considering social contact. The model includes schools that represent the set of private and public schools in terms of age, enrollment, location, and size. The model is calibrated to daily incidence of deaths in Bogotá. We simulated school reopening at different capacities, assuming high use of face mask, and evaluated the impact on the number of deaths in the city of different scenarios of school reopening by grade, and multidimensional poverty index. We found that school reopening, based on a correct use of face masks at 75% in >8 years of age, at 35% capacity had a small impact on the number of deaths reported in the city, assuming that overall mobility in the city was similar to the mobility during November. The increase in deaths was smallest when only pre-kinder was opened, and largest when secondary school was opened. Even at larger capacities, the impact on the number of deaths of opening pre-kinder was below 10%. Reopening other grades above 50% of capacity could significantly increase the number of deaths in the city. Reopening schools based on the multidimensional poverty index resulted in a similar increase in the number of deaths, independently on the level of poverty of schools. We conclude that the impact of schools reopening for in-person instruction is lower for pre-kinder grades and the magnitude of additional deaths associated with school reopening can be minimized by adjusting capacity in older grades. In addition, opening lower grades could allow adults, especially the poorest women to return to work.

The impact of vaccination strategies for COVID-19 in the context of emerging variants and increasing social mixing in Bogotá, Colombia: a mathematical modelling study

“…We simulated the impact of the introduction of the delta variant with an agent-based model that includes a detailed representation of the population of Bogotá by age, geographic location, and main social activities and mobility patterns (schools, universities, workplaces, long-term care facilities, households, and neighborhoods). This model has been previously validated to COVID-19 dynamics in various places [10,11]. We found that the increased number of cases and deaths during the third wave of COVID-19 in the city could be explained by a combination of higher mobility and social contacts, along with the presence of variants of concern or interest, in particular gamma may explain the first part, and B.1.621 the second part of the third wave.…”

“…We extended a previous version of our SARS-CoV-2 Bogotá model [10] to include the potential effect of vaccination and variants. Our agent-based model simulates transmission of SARS-CoV-2 based on daily activity patterns of a synthetic population, representing demographic and geographic characteristics of the total population of Bogotá.…”

“…We used a detailed agent-based model of the epidemic in Bogotá [10,11] to explore the impact of multiple circulating variants, including delta. We also studied the impact of changing social mixing patterns in the city and of different vaccination strategies.…”

A new threshold reveals the uncertainty about the effect of school opening on diffusion of Covid-19

“…In these cases, one can see the effect of a sharp transition from a subcritical, acceptable reopening, to an excessively impactful one. In [33], Figures 4 and 5, for instance, one can see that up to 50% capacity the effect of opening schools is almost negligible, while it becomes substantial above 75%; this is a likely indication of a critical point between these values. For convenience, Figure 4 in [33] is reproduced here in Figure 2.…”

“…Compartmental models with two subpopulations are discussed in many works in general terms, see for instance a review in [20]; and then applied to the school opening issue in data driven analyses in [26,[31][32][33]: we discuss the relation of some these results with our work in Section A. 16.…”