School in Italy: a safe place for children and adolescents.

BACKGROUND: During the first SARS-CoV-2 pandemic phase, the sudden closure of schools was one of the main measures to minimize the spread of the virus. In the second phase, several safety procedures were implemented to avoid school closure. To evaluate if the school is a safe place, students and staff of two school complexes of Rome were monitored to evaluate the efficacy of prevention measures inside the school buildings. METHODS: Oral secretions specimens were collected from 1262 subjects for a total of 3431 samples, collected over a 3 months period. Detection of Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 was performed by real-time PCR. Target genes were represented by E gene, RdRP/S gene and N gene. RESULTS: Among the 3431 samples analyzed, just 16 sample resulted as positive or low positive: 1 sample in the first month, 12 samples in the second month and 3 in the third month. In each period of evaluation, all positive children attended different classes. CONCLUSIONS: Even if the school has the potential for spreading viruses, our preliminary results show the efficacy of the implementations undertaken in this setting to minimize virus diffusion. Our evidence suggests that school does not act as an amplifier for transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and can be really considered a safe place for students.

Unequal effects of the national lockdown on mental and social health in Italy.

With the exception of a few countries that chose a different approach, the worldwide reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic was a (longer or shorter) period of national lockdown. While the economic consequences of shutting down national economies were immediately evident, the sociopsychiatric implications of the social confinement of the entire population remain hidden and not fully understood. Italy has been the first European country to be severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, to which it responded through strict lockdown measurements. The results of a timely survey on mental and social health, carried out by students and teachers of a middle school in Rome, might help identify the most vulnerable groups of the population. This evidence could be crucial in conceiving and enacting targeted public health policies to mitigate the consequences of the pandemic on mental health and to prevent intolerance to containment measures in some population segments, which could hamper worldwide efforts in the fight against COVID-19.