Individual prevention and containment measures in schools in Catalonia, Spain, and community transmission of SARS-CoV-2 after school re-opening

Abstract

Despite their clear lesser vulnerability to COVID-19, the extent by which children are susceptible to getting infected by SARS-CoV-2 and their capacity to transmit the infection to other people remains inadequately characterized. We aimed to evaluate the role of school reopening and the preventive strategies in place at schools in terms of overall risk for children and community transmission, by comparing transmission rates in children as detected by a COVID-19 surveillance platform in place in Catalonian Schools to the incidence at the community level. ; : Funding The components of the analysis drawn from the different KIDS Corona platform have been funded by Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), Banco Santander and other private donors of Kidscorona. We also acknowledge funding from La Caixa Foundation (ID 100010434), under agreement LCF/PR/GN17/50300003; and funding from Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades and FEDER, with the project PGC2018-095456-B-I00. This work has been also partially funded by the European Commission - DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology through the contract LC-01485746. ISGlobal receives support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the "Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa 2019-2023" Program (CEX2018-000806-S), and support from the Generalitat de Catalunya through the CERCA Program. CISM is supported by the Government of Mozambique and the Spanish Agency for International Development (AECID). NB is supported by an FPU predoctoral fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Universities (FPU18/04260). BB is a Beatriu de Pino´s postdoctoral fellow granted by the Government of Catalonia's Secretariat for Universities and Research, and by Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions COFUND Programme (BP3, 801370). Role of the funding source The funders had no role in the interpretation of the data or in the writing up of the manuscript. ; Postprint (published version)