Potential effect of school closure on a UK COVID-19 epidemic: annex to SPI-M-O consensus view, 20 February 2020
Paper prepared by Imperial College on the potential effect of school closures.
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Paper prepared by Imperial College in response to a commission to look at the potential effect of school closures on a UK COVID-19 epidemic. It was considered at SAGE 9 on 20 February 2020.
This is an annex to the SPI-M-O: Consensus view on the impact of mass school closures as published under SAGE 9 and should be read in that context. This annex was 1 of 3 modelling approaches considered in the SPI-M-O consensus view, which summarises the main insights across the available evidence and modelling at the time.
These results should not be interpreted as a forecast, but rather illustrative outputs under a set of assumptions to inform wider discussion. These modelling outputs are subject to uncertainty given the evidence available at the time, and dependent on the assumptions made.
It should be viewed in context: the paper was the best assessment of the evidence at the time of writing. The picture is developing rapidly and, as new evidence or data emerges, SAGE updates its advice accordingly.
Therefore, some of the information in this paper may have been superseded and the author’s opinion or conclusion may since have developed.
These documents are released as pre-print publications that have provided the government with rapid evidence during an emergency. These documents have not been peer-reviewed and there is no restriction on authors submitting and publishing this evidence in peer-reviewed journals.