The research, which was referenced in an influential paper from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) on how returning students could spread Covid-19 this autumn, stresses how first-years would be the drivers of any outbreak. It suggests that different measures should be used in combination for maximum effect, something that could then “effectively control transmission in the student population”. ![]() Tests would also need to be performed relatively frequently for it to be an effective measure. The effect of other measures was more variable, the research suggests, with mass testing potentially effective in scenarios where the virus was being passed easily between people but at “a substantial cost in terms of the number of students self- isolating”. Taken on its own, the researchers found that cutting face-to-face teaching contacts to a minimal level “was the single most impactful intervention investigated…including scenarios in which the number of cases in the student population was driven to zero”. It goes on to consider the potential effect of various different interventions, including the use of “Covid security” measures such as additional social distancing and the use of face masks, cutting the amount of face-to-face teaching, restricting the number of students sharing facilities in accommodation and mass testing. The modellers, from Bristol and the University of Exeter, used data on factors such as where students lived and their year of study combined with information from a previous survey on the typical number of social contacts made by students. However, the study, published on the preprint server medRxiv, also suggests that drastically cutting face-to-face teaching, if used with other measures such as increased social distancing, could cut infection rates by 75 per cent. The epidemiological modelling, which used anonymised student data from the University of Bristol as a test case, also found that in such a scenario almost 1,000 students would be infectious on the last day of term, a time when many would be preparing to travel back to family homes. ![]() Cutting face-to-face teaching is the most effective way to reduce coronavirus transmission on campuses, according to a study which found that about a fifth of students could catch the virus by the end of the first term if additional protections were not put in place.
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