SARS-CoV-2 transmissions in students and teachers: seroprevalence follow-up study in a German secondary school in November and December 2020

Objective To quantify the number of undetected SARS-CoV-2 infections in educational settings.Design Serial SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence study before and during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.Setting Secondary school in Dresden, Germany.Participants Grade 8–12 students and their teachers were invited to participate in serial blood sampling and SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibody assessment.Main outcome measure Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in study population.Results 247 students and 55 teachers participated in the initial study visit and 197 students and 40 teachers completed follow-up. Seroprevalence increased from 1.7% (0.3–3.3) to 6.8% (3.8–10.1) during the study period mirroring the increase of officially reported SARS-CoV-2 infections during this time. The ratio of undetected to detected SARS-CoV-2 infections ranged from 0.25 to 0.33.Conclusions We could not find evidence of relevant silent, asymptomatic spread of SARS-CoV-2 in schools neither in a low prevalence setting nor during the second wave of the pandemic, making it unlikely that educational settings play a crucial role in driving the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.Trial registration number DRKS00022455

Comparison of mental health outcomes in seropositive and seronegative adolescents during the COVID19 pandemic

Post-COVID19 complications such as pediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome (PIMS) and Long-COVID19 move increasingly into focus, potentially causing more harm in young adolescents than the acute infection. To better understand the symptoms of long-term mental health outcomes in adolescents and distinguish infection-associated symptoms from pandemic-associated symptoms, we conducted a 12 question Long-COVID19 survey. Using this survey, we compared the responses on neurocognitive, general pain and mood symptoms from seropositive and seronegative adolescents in a cross-sectional study design. Since May 2020, students grade 8-12 in fourteen secondary schools in Eastern Saxony were enrolled in the SchoolCovid19 study. Serostatus was assessed regularly in all participants. In March/April 2021, 1560 students with a median age of 15 years participated at the regular study visit after re-opening of the schools in mid-March and responded to our Long-COVID19 survey as part of this visit. 1365 (88%) students were seronegative, 188 (12%) were seropositive. Each symptom asked in the Long-COVID19 survey was present in at least 35% of the students within the last seven days before the survey. With the exception of seropositive students being less sad, there was no significant difference comparing the reported symptoms between seropositive students and seronegative students. The lack of differences comparing the reported symptoms between seropositive and seronegative students suggests that Long-COVID19 might be less common than previously thought and emphasizes on the impact of pandemic-associated symptoms regarding the well-being and mental health of young adolescents.Clinical Trial Registration: SchoolCoviDD19: Prospektive Erfassung der SARS-CoV-2 Seropositivität bei Schulkindern nach Ende der unterrichtsfreien Zeit aufgrund der Corona-Schutz-Verordnung (COVID-19), DRKS00022455, https://www.drks.de/drks_web/navigate.do?navigationId=trial.HTML&TRIAL_ID=DRKS00022455