Study finds teachers not at increased risk of severe Covid

Teachers are not at increased risk of hospital admission with covid-19 and are at lower risk of severe covid-19 (admission to intensive care unit or death) compared with other adults of working age in the general population, a new study has found

The study by the Wellcome Trust was published by the British Medical Journal and used Scottish data from March 2020 to July 2021 to compare the risk of Covid-19 among teachers and their household compared with healthcare workers and adults in the general population.

They found the risk of hospital admission was 50 per cent lower for teachers and their households in the spring and summer of 2020 than the general population.

When schools remained closed during the winter period, teachers and their households again showed a 50 per cent lower risk of hospital admission than the general population, but during school reopenings in autumn 2020 the risk of hospital admission for teachers increased more than twofold – reaching similar levels to those in the general population.

The summer term saw a smaller increase as rates increased by around 1.7 times, possibly due to the uptake of vaccinations.

There was no accompanying increase in the relative risk of severe Covid among teachers or their households during the period in which schools were open.