In the absence of an effective vaccine for Covid-19, school closures would result in more overall deaths than no school closures, scientists have warned

Shutting schools ‘increases coronavirus deaths’, scientists claim (Image)

Shutting schools during the Covid-19 pandemic could actually increase the overall death rate from the disease, researchers have said.

A new analysis revisited the piece of work by Professor Neil Ferguson and colleagues from Imperial College London which predicted that hundreds of thousands of deaths would occur if no action was taken to stop the spread of Covid-19.

The Imperial study, also known as Report 9, prompted the far-reaching social restrictions implemented in March – including the closure of schools for most pupils.

Now researchers from the University of Edinburgh have reassessed the model used.

The new study examined and reproduced the main results in Report 9 using the information available at the time.

It specifically examined the effect of school closures – Report 9 found that closing schools reduced the reproduction number of Covid-19 but had the unexpected effect of increasing the number of deaths.