Amodio Emanuele, Battisti Michele, Gravina Antonio Francesco, Lavezzi Andrea Mario, Maggio Giuseppe
Department of Health, Promotion, Mother and Child Care, Internal Medicine and Medical Specialties, Università degli Studi di Palermo, Palermo, Italy.
Department of Law, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy.
Health Econ. 2023 May;32(5):1084-1100. doi: 10.1002/hec.4657. Epub 2023 Feb 8.
This article investigates the relationship between school openings and Covid-19 diffusion when school-age vaccination becomes available. The analysis relies on a unique geo-referenced high frequency database on age of vaccination, Covid-19 cases and hospitalization indicators from the Italian region of Sicily. The study focuses on the change of Covid-19 diffusion after school opening in a homogeneous geographical territory (i.e., with the same control measures and surveillance systems, centrally coordinated by the Regional Government). The identification of causal effects derives from a comparison of the change in cases before and after school opening in the school year 2020/21, when vaccination was not available, and in 2021/22, when the vaccination campaign targeted individuals of age 12-19 and above 19. Results indicate that, while school opening determined an increase in the growth rate of Covid-19 cases in 2020/2021, this effect has been substantially reduced by school-age vaccination in 2021/2022. In particular, we find that an increase of approximately 10% in the vaccination rate of school-age population reduces the growth rate of Covid-19 cases after school opening by approximately 1%.
本文研究了在学龄儿童可接种疫苗的情况下，学校开学与新冠病毒传播之间的关系。该分析依赖于一个独特的地理定位高频数据库，该数据库包含来自意大利西西里岛地区的疫苗接种年龄、新冠病毒病例和住院指标。该研究聚焦于在一个同质化地理区域（即由地区政府集中协调，采取相同控制措施和监测系统）学校开学后新冠病毒传播情况的变化。因果效应的识别源于对2020/21学年（当时无法接种疫苗）和2021/22学年（当时疫苗接种活动针对12 - 19岁及19岁以上人群）学校开学前后病例变化的比较。结果表明，虽然学校开学在2020/2021年导致了新冠病毒病例增长率上升，但在2021/2022年，学龄儿童接种疫苗大幅降低了这种影响。具体而言，我们发现学龄人口疫苗接种率每提高约10%，学校开学后新冠病毒病例增长率就会降低约1%。
