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College closures in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic imposed monumental long-term prices whereas different measures delivered higher well being outcomes for much much less cash, in response to new analysis led by Oxford College’s Division of Statistics and the Leverhulme Middle for Demographic Science analyzing non-pharmaceutical interventions in america.
The research examined insurance policies applied throughout US states throughout 2020, earlier than vaccines grew to become obtainable. Researchers from Oxford and the College of Washington analyzed eleven totally different non-pharmaceutical interventions, combining illness modeling with financial evaluation to calculate each well being advantages and prices to society.
The paper, “Optimal pandemic control strategies and cost‑effectiveness of COVID‑19 non‑pharmaceutical interventions in the United States,” is accessible within the journal BMC World and Public Well being.
Throughout this pre-vaccine interval, policymakers relied solely on non-pharmaceutical measures reminiscent of masks mandates, social distancing, testing, contact tracing, and facility closures to manage the virus.
College closures prevented roughly 77,200 COVID-19 deaths and diminished transmission charges by 8.2% however created £1.6 trillion ($2 trillion) in future financial losses by way of broken schooling. College students misplaced upwards of 0.35 school-years of studying, with some states retaining colleges closed for almost your entire 2020–2021 tutorial 12 months.
As compared, masks mandates minimize transmission by 19%, making them simpler at stopping illness unfold, whereas imposing minimal prices. Testing and call tracing applications additionally proved environment friendly in comparison with implementation prices.
Lead creator Nicholas Irons mentioned, “The pandemic posed unprecedented challenges to decision-makers at all levels. While our policy response was not optimal—and we could not have expected it to be—our study shows that many of the measures implemented mitigated economic damage in addition to suppressing transmission of the virus. School closures were a notable exception.”
An optimum mixture of interventions may have minimize the pandemic’s complete US affect from £3.7 trillion ($4.6 trillion) to £1.5 trillion ($1.9 trillion) whereas saving over 100,000 further lives.
“Our study shows how using statistical methods to analyze all the sources of data could improve health outcomes and vastly reduce costs to society,” mentioned co-author Adrian Raftery from the College of Washington. “Going forward, better national surveillance data needs to be collected regularly in the US, as was done in the UK during the pandemic.”
The findings present a blueprint for future pandemic planning, providing concrete information on which interventions ship the very best well being outcomes whereas minimizing financial and social disruption.
The analysis suggests fast deployment of testing, contact tracing, masks mandates and social distancing, mixed with focused facility closures, may management comparable future outbreaks with out large academic prices.
Extra data:
Optimum pandemic management methods and price‑effectiveness of COVID‑19 non‑pharmaceutical interventions in america, BMC World and Public Well being (2025). DOI: 10.1186/s44263-025-00189-z
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US COVID-19 college closures weren’t cost-effective, however different non-pharmaceutical interventions had been, research finds (2025, September 11)
retrieved 11 September 2025
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