Relative-Risk and the Assessment of School Safety in the COVID-19 Pandemic

The debate around school closures has focused on the question of whether schools are safe in the midst of the pandemic. Most studies look at this issue from the perspective of absolute risk. We consider the perspective of relative risk: in other words, whether children are safer at school or at home. Our model shows, under a reasonable and robust set of assumptions about testing strategies and compliance with CDC guidance on countermeasures, in-person learning can be safer for children than being at home. Interestingly, the model suggests that this benefit increases with rates of community spread. Our model-based findings are in concordance with a broad range of empirical studies suggesting that students are safe at school.

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