{"doi":"10.17615/t0zy-8a53","title":"Incidence and Secondary Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 Infections in Schools","abstract":"BACKGROUND: In an effort to mitigate the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), North Carolina (NC) closed its K–12 public schools to in-person instruction on 03/14/2020. On 07/15/2020, NC’s governor announced schools could open via remote learning or a “hybrid” model that combined in-person and remote instruction. In August 2020, 56 of 115 NC school districts joined the ABC Science Collaborative (ABCs) to implement public health measures to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission and share lessons learned. We describe secondary transmission of SARS-CoV-2 within participating NC school districts during the first 9 weeks of in-person instruction in the 2020–2021 academic school year. METHODS: From 08/15/2020–10/23/2020, 11 of 56 school districts participating in ABCs were open for in-person instruction for all 9 weeks of the first quarter and agreed to track incidence and secondary transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Local health department staff adjudicated secondary transmission. Superintendents met weekly with ABCs faculty to share lessons learned and develop prevention methods. RESULTS: Over 9 weeks, 11 participating school districts had more than 90,000 students and staff attend school in-person; of these, there were 773 community-acquired SARS-CoV-2 infections documented by molecular testing. Through contact tracing, NC health department staff determined an additional 32 infections were acquired within schools. No instances of child-to-adult transmission of SARS-CoV-2 were reported within schools. CONCLUSIONS: In the first 9 weeks of in-person instruction in NC schools, we found extremely limited within-school secondary transmission of SARS-CoV-2, as determined by contact tracing.","journal":"UNC Libraries","year":2021,"id":211474,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.964,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":621143,"name":"Helen Bristow","orcid":"0000-0003-4202-7562","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":282050,"name":"Sarah Armstrong","orcid":"0000-0003-4745-5646","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":621139,"name":"Angelique E Boutzoukas","orcid":"0000-0002-9477-1492","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":319873,"name":"Kanecia O. Zimmerman","orcid":"0000-0003-3748-6932","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":621140,"name":"Kathleen A. McGann","orcid":"0000-0003-4458-1671","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":338070,"name":"Ibukunoluwa Akinboyo","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":593284,"name":"Michael J. Smith","orcid":"0000-0001-8358-1530","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":540857,"name":"M. Alan Brookhart","orcid":"0000-0003-1572-0564","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":388578,"name":"David J. Weber","orcid":"0000-0003-1726-4435","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":621144,"name":"Sabrina Zadrozny","orcid":"0000-0002-8811-8868","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":801356,"name":"Daniel K.. Benjamin","orcid":null,"position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":621142,"name":"Gabriela M. Maradiaga Panayotti","orcid":"0000-0001-7273-348X","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":622415,"name":"Donna R. Parker","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:52:20.112538Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}