According to an Austrian study, there is little contamination with the coronavirus in schools but an almost identical prevalence for students and teachers.

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KONRAD K./SIPA

A good point for keeping schools open.

According to a study published on Friday in Austria, there would be little coronavirus contamination in schools.

The four Austrian universities mandated by the Austrian Ministry of Health also note that "there is no significant difference between children and teachers".

The researchers tested 10,156 randomly asymptomatic elementary and middle school students and teachers at 243 schools across the country, between September 28 and October 22, with the gargle method.

Only 40 of them carried the virus, ie a prevalence of 0.39%.

As for the children, 0.37% were infected against 0.57% of the adults in the supervision, a difference too small to be significant according to the study.

The prevalence 3.5 times higher in disadvantaged establishments

On the other hand, "the prevalence differs between schools with a high social disadvantage index (0.81%) and schools with a moderate social disadvantage index (0.23%)", stress the researchers.

Other test phases will be carried out regularly throughout the school year in order to better understand the circulation of the coronavirus in schools.

Education Minister Heinz Fassmann hopes the first results of this study will contribute to the public debate on whether or not to close schools, as Austria questions the explosion in recent cases weeks.

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