Vaccinations or Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions:Safe Reopening of Schools in England

Cuesta-Lazaro, C.; Quera-Bofarull, A.; Aylett-Bullock, J.; Lawrence, B. N.; Fong, K.; Icaza-Lizaola, M.; Aidan, S.; Truong, H.; Vernon, I.; Williams, J.; Krauss, F.

With high levels of the Delta variant of COVID-19 circulating in England during September 2021, schools are set to reopen with few school-based non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). In this paper, we present simulation results obtained from the individual-based model, JUNE, for school opening after a prior vaccination campaign using an optimistic set of assumptions about vaccine efficacy and the likelihood of prior-reinfection. We take a scenario-based approach to modelling potential interventions to assess relative changes rather than real-world forecasts. Specifically, we assess the effects of vaccinating those aged 16-17, those aged 12-17, and not vaccinating children at all relative to only vaccinating the adult population. Vaccinating children in the 12-15 age group would have had a significant impact on the course of the epidemic, saving thousands of lives overall in these simulations. In the absence of such a vaccination campaign our simulations show there could still be a significant positive impact on the epidemic (fewer cases, fewer deaths) by continuing NPI strategies in schools. Our analysis suggests that the best results are likely derived from a combination of vaccinations and NPIs.