Initial Coronavirus Disease-2019 Closure Strategies Adopted by a Convenience Sample of US School Districts: Directions for Future Research

• Published in: Disaster medicine and public health preparedness Vol. 14; no. 3; p. e17
• Main Authors: Schlegelmilch, Jeff, Douglas, Claire
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01-06-2020
• Subjects: Coronavirus Infections - complications; Coronavirus Infections - epidemiology; Coronavirus Infections - transmission; COVID-19; Education, Distance - methods; Forecasting; Humans; Pandemics - prevention & control; Pandemics - statistics & numerical data; Pneumonia, Viral - complications; Pneumonia, Viral - epidemiology; Pneumonia, Viral - transmission; Public Health - methods; Public Health - trends; Schools - organization & administration; Schools - statistics & numerical data; Schools - trends; United States; United States; COVID-19; mitigation; school closure; infectious disease transmission; pandemics
• ISSN: 1938-744X
• DOI: 10.1017/dmp.2020.147

School closures are an important strategy to mitigate the impacts of a pandemic. But an optimal approach to transitioning from in-person to distance learning approaches is lacking. We analyzed a convenience sample of public K-12 schools in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. This initial snapshot provides some insights to inform future research into the variation of strategies across school districts, and would benefit from more rigorous methods to determine true correlations between demographic and geographic factors. Additionally, many of these strategies have evolved in response to ongoing and prolonged public health social distancing measures implemented after this analysis was conducted.