The specifics of the particular disease and its target populations must play a central part in official decision-making. We know in the influenza model that closing schools early in an outbreak is effective, and early in the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of countries closed schools without data to support the theory that schools were amplifying disease in their respective communities. At this point in an epidemic or pandemic’s evolution, we should take that step only if we can show that children have higher rates of infection by being kept in school than by being kept at home. Two advanced
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