Impact of in-school antigen testing on the prevalence of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 carriers during the COVID-19 pandemic era
Christoph Zurl, Benoit Bernar, Sereina A. Herzog, Peter Willeit, Reinhold Kerbl, Thomas Müller, Bernd Lamprecht, Robert Krause, Michael Wagner, Volker Strenger, on behalf of the School-SARS-CoV-2 study group · 2026
Read Impact of in-school antigen testing on the prevalence of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 carriers during the COVID-19 pandemic era by Christoph Zurl, Benoit Bernar, Sereina A. Herzog, Peter Willeit, Reinhold Kerbl, Thomas Müller, Bernd Lamprecht, Robert Krause, Michael Wagner, Volker Strenger, on behalf of the School-SARS-CoV-2 study group (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13597840.txt.
Description
Christoph Zurl and a study group of co-authors report on testing schoolchildren for the virus that causes COVID-19, in this 2026 paper. During the pandemic, many countries closed schools to slow spread, though closures carried heavy costs for learning and wellbeing. Austria tried a different route: regular nose-swab antigen tests inside schools, meant to catch children who carried the virus without feeling ill.
The study measured how the share of silent carriers changed while the testing program ran. Children who feel well can still pass the virus to classmates, teachers, and family at home, so finding them early could break chains of spread without closing buildings. The results add real-world evidence to a debate that was often settled by guesswork at the time: whether testing can keep schools both open and safe during an outbreak.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Christoph Zurl, Benoit Bernar, Sereina A. Herzog, Peter Willeit, Reinhold Kerbl, Thomas Müller, Bernd Lamprecht, Robert Krause, Michael Wagner, Volker Strenger, on behalf of the School-SARS-CoV-2 study group |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 32 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |