Measuring the benefits of school closure interventions to mitigate influenza.

In the absence of an effective vaccine, public health interventions that provide social distancing may reduce infectious disease transmission by limiting contact of infectious and noninfectious persons within populations. These measures include school closures, the cancellation of large public gatherings and the use of facemasks. Such drastic interventions can be socially disruptive, costly or ethically unappealing. Hence it is critical that early public health efforts focus on estimating epidemic severity and transmission potential to guide the implementation of social distancing measures.