I know this is a hot button topic. I know that it will cause chaos for every business and will have disproportionate social impact. However, there seems to be pretty clear benefit when closures are put in place for at least 8-12 weeks. Of course there will be trade offs. I don’t even want to try to do a cost benefit analysis on this because I know I will miss something important because it’s more for a sociologist. However, from a disease spread standpoint, we have to bite the bullet and the sooner we do, the better.
Instead of a lot of commentary, I’ll just link to the English literature reviews I found on the topic. The primary research can be found from there. Share this with your governors, mayors, school boards, and superintendents. These are hard decisions but the conversation needs to happen. Lives are at stake.
(2009) Closure of schools during an influenza pandemic
(2018) School closure during novel influenza: A systematic review
We really needed to act on this a few weeks ago.
