Sam Moore (Lancaster University)

Title: Modelling the spread of disease between schools and the community, and the effects of mass testing pupils during the COVID pandemic.
 

Abstract: During the COVID-19 pandemic in England, twice weekly asymptomatic testing of pupils was introduced as part of a range of non-pharmaceutical public health interventions with the aim of making schools a safe environment, reducing infection between school pupils and onward transmission to the community.
By using detailed demographic information at UTLA level, combined contact information collected through the CTAS (test and trace) data, we are able to build an individual based model that explicitly accounts for interactions between school, home and community environments. This model has been used to demonstrate significant benefits gained by school testing regimes, due to their action as a form of asymptomatic mass testing. Schools based disease outbreaks are a regular occurrence, the recent surge of measles outbreaks providing another apt example. Building a better understanding of the spread of infection within schools and between schools and the community, together with how it may be effectively mitigated, provides a rich avenue for future work.