School Closure and Mitigation of Pandemic (H1N1) 2009, Hong Kong

Abstract

In Hong Kong, kindergartens and primary schools were closed when local transmission of pandemic (H1N1) 2009 was identified. Secondary schools closed for summer vacation shortly afterwards. By fitting a model of reporting and transmission to case data, we estimated that transmission was reduced ≈25% when secondary schools closed.

Keywords

• Influenza
• pandemic
• mitigation
• mathematical modeling
• viruses
• H1N1