IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nas/journl/v118y2021pe2103420118.html

The association of opening K–12 schools with the spread of COVID-19 in the United States: County-level panel data analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Victor Chernozhukov

    (a Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142;; b Center for Statistics and Data Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139;)

  • Hiroyuki Kasahara

    (c Vancouver School of Economics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T1L4, Canada)

  • Paul Schrimpf

    (c Vancouver School of Economics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T1L4, Canada)

Abstract

This paper examines whether the opening of K–12 schools may lead to the spread of COVID-19. Analyzing how an increase of COVID-19 cases is related to the timing of opening K–12 schools in the United States, we find that counties that opened K–12 schools with in-person learning experienced an increase in the growth rate of cases by 5 percentage points on average, controlling for a variety of policies, past infection rates, and other factors. This association of K–12 school visits with case growth is stronger when mask wearing is not mandated for staff at school. These findings support policies that promote masking and other precautionary measures at schools and giving vaccine priority to education workers.

Suggested Citation

  • Victor Chernozhukov & Hiroyuki Kasahara & Paul Schrimpf, 2021. "The association of opening K–12 schools with the spread of COVID-19 in the United States: County-level panel data analysis," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 118(42), pages 2103420118-, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:nas:journl:v:118:y:2021:p:e2103420118
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.pnas.org/content/118/42/e2103420118.full
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Emanuele Amodio & Michele Battisti & Antonio Francesco Gravina & Andrea Mario Lavezzi & Giuseppe Maggio, 2023. "School‐age vaccination, school openings and Covid‐19 diffusion," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(5), pages 1084-1100, May.
    2. Marc Diederichs & Reyn van Ewijk & Ingo E. Isphording & Nico Pestel, 2022. "Schools under mandatory testing can mitigate the spread of SARS-CoV-2," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 119(26), pages 2201724119-, June.
    3. Amodio, Emanuele & Battisti, Michele & Kourtellos, Andros & Maggio, Giuseppe & Maida, Carmelo Massimo, 2022. "Schools opening and Covid-19 diffusion: Evidence from geolocalized microdata," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    4. Kisho Hoshi & Hiroyuki Kasahara & Ryo Makioka & Michio Suzuki & Satoshi Tanaka, 2021. "Trade-off between job losses and the spread of COVID-19 in Japan," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 72(4), pages 683-716, October.
    5. Junfu Zhao, 2025. "The Economic Power of Capital and the Spread of COVID-19 in the United States: An Empirical Study," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 57(1), pages 30-57, March.
    6. Koppa, Vijetha & West, Jeremy, 2022. "School reopenings, COVID-19, and employment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    7. Jara, Karen Trujillo & Hernandez, Jose Ignacio & Mouter, Niek & Brouwer, Werner & van Exel, Job, 2025. "Preferences of citizens in Peru for school opening during a public-health crisis: A participatory value evaluation study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 365(C).
    8. André Kurmann & Etienne Lalé, 2021. "School Closures and Effective In-Person Learning during COVID-19: When, Where, and for Whom," School of Economics Working Paper Series 2021-18, LeBow College of Business, Drexel University.
    9. Dan Goldhaber & Scott A. Imberman & Katharine O. Strunk & Bryant G. Hopkins & Nate Brown & Erica Harbatkin & Tara Kilbride, 2022. "To What Extent Does In‐Person Schooling Contribute To The Spread Of Covid‐19? Evidence From Michigan And Washington," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(1), pages 318-349, January.
    10. Boucekkine, Raouf & Chakraborty, Shankha & Goenka, Aditya & Liu, Lin, 2024. "Economic epidemiological modelling: A progress report," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    11. Lattanzio, Salvatore, 2024. "Schools and the transmission of Sars-Cov-2: Evidence from Italy," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nas:journl:v:118:y:2021:p:e2103420118. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: PNAS Product Team (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.pnas.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.