Strategies for exiting COVID-19 lockdown for workplace and school: a scoping review protocol

Objective: The main objectives of this review are to summarise the existing literature and to identify strategies for exiting lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on reopening schools and returning to work. Introduction: After months of strict quarantine, several countries are planning exit strategies to progressively lift social restrictions without giving rise to an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases. Although several strategies have been studied in terms of how and when to relax such stringent constraints, there is a lack of consensus on the optimal strategy for managing the pandemic beyond lockdown. The risks posed by delaying return to work and school openings are real and sizeable, particularly for relevant working sectors and for students from low-income families Inclusion criteria: This review will consider studies that focussed on relaxation strategies for lockdown exit among workers and students facing an epidemic /pandemic crisis. Methods: The searches will be conducted across four databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, SciSearch, Google Scholar), and the bibliography of all selected studies will be hand-searched. In addition, because the topic is new, relevant literature will be checked using daily, updated COVID-19 collections from NCBI (LitCovid) and MedRxiv servers. Studies published in English, German, Spanish, Italian and French will be included, with no limits on publication dates. This review will consider all study designs, regardless of their rigor. The review method will be based on a two-phase approach: a title and abstract screening, and a full-text review performed by two independent researchers. Data will be summarised and categorised, and results will be presented in a tabular/diagrammatic form.