Little Risk of the COVID-19 Resurgence on Students in China (outside Hubei) Caused by School Reopening

Cheng Long; Tieyong Zeng; XINMIAO FU

The novel coronavirus diseases (COVID-19) outbreak is going on in China and has resulted in 58 80000 confirmed cases and over 3100 deaths as of 10 March 2020 1 . Since March 11, China only 59 reported 20 or less new cases, most of which are concentrated in Hubei Province and its capital 60 Wuhan City, the epicenter of the outbreak. As such, China (outside Hubei) has entered a new stage 61 of epidemic prevention and control coupled with a stepwise restoration of social and economic 62 operations 2 . In particular, it is highly demanding to reopen schools because the delay of schooling 63 time for approximately two months has substantially impacted on more than 100 millions of 64 families in China. Nevertheless, none of schools has reopened so far across the country, largely assume that all students are healthy, given that only 0.9% of over 50000 COVDI-19 cases in 78 China are aged 0-9 years and 1.2% are 10-19 years 5 ; as such, we simply focus on the potential 79 transmission from teachers to students (or between teachers), excluding that from students to 80 students or teachers. Last, we assume the secondary attack rate of the COVID-19 virus in schools 81 is similar to that in households, ranging from 3-10% 2 .