![]() ![]() While in some countries the levels of transmission and diffusion of the virus have never been reduced, in Italy and other countries, thanks to the combination of pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), governments have been able to control the pandemic, significantly reducing its diffusion. On March 11, 2020, the central government decided to extend the lockdown to the entire country, a measure that was put into action the very next day. During the first days of the diffusion of the virus, different regions implemented different strategies, mainly characterized by a mixture of school closures, enforcement of social distancing behaviour, and some lockdowns, at first localized in ten municipalities in Lodi province (in the region of Lombardy), and one municipality in Padua province (in the region of Veneto). The diffusion of the virus was especially severe in Northern Italy, and in particular in the regions of Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, and Veneto. Indeed, between February and March 2020, Italy was the Western country that was worst hit by COVID-19, and the second most badly affected country in the world. Their objective was to reduce the probability of people contracting the virus, and they included social distancing, school closures, ], and lockdown policies, , ].ĭuring the first wave of the pandemic, Italy was an interesting case study. In particular, as has been pointed out by several scholars, along with health policies aimed at strengthening the capacity of the hospital system, so-called non-pharmaceutical interventions were introduced. ![]() In order to fight the spread of the virus, national governments began to adopt different containment measures. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared “ assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic”. In December 2019, starting from Hubei province in China, a coronavirus infectious disease (COVID-19) spread rapidly across the world. While closing schools or using distance learning have other social and economic consequences, making it necessary for policymakers to adopt a holistic evaluation, it should be taken into account that open schools have an impact on the spread of the pandemic. Our results suggest that open schools have a positive impact on COVID-19 cases, whose spread occurs between 10 and 14 days after opening. In this study, we focus on the Italian case, an interesting setting in which to test the impact of opening schools on the spread of COVID-19, because of the different dates at which schools have opened in the various Italian provinces, and because of the different rates at which the virus has spread across Italy. Some contributions have suggested that youngsters play a minor role in the spread of the virus, given the specific characteristics of this infection other scholars have raised concerns about the necessary movement that involves keeping schools open, and the consequent potential spread of the virus. ![]() The opening of schools that coincided with the beginning of fall 2020 and the arrival of the second wave of COVID-19 in continental Europe has fostered significant debate in several countries.
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