The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reduced its recommended distance for students on Friday from six feet to three feet apart, if everybody is wearing a mask.
Adults should still stay six feet away from each other and from children because transmission there has shown to be more common, the guidance reads. If students are eating or participating in an activity without masks, like choir or band, six feet should still be the minimum. The revised guidance also recommends six feet in areas with “high community transmission” for middle and high school students, if it’s not possible to split the students into groups.
The guidance also clarified what the CDC views as differences between the community transmission levels, and it removed the recommendation for physical barriers, among other alterations.
Ohio already has relaxed its quarantine recommendations for students who do not meet the six-foot social distancing minimum. In December, Gov. Mike DeWine announced Ohio would not require quarantining for students exposed in the classroom, because the state had conducted research on transmission and found masking was effective in halting transmission. The state expanded that guidance last week to say if a student was exposed in the classroom and didn’t show any symptoms, that student could still participate in sports and other extracurriculars.
The revised CDC guidance comes after several studies on the topic. Recently, a study from Massachusetts published in “Clinical Infectious Diseases” examined differences in social distancing in 241 school districts, including about a half-million students. Researchers found that case rates were similar in districts with 3-feet social distancing guidelines versus 6-feet social distancing guidelines, concluding the requirement could be dropped without a negative effect.
MassLive reported that CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky noted the CDC was looking at revising the guidelines when she spoke before Congress on Wednesday.
“As soon as our guidance came out, it became very clear that 6 feet was among the things that was keeping schools closed, and in that context, science evolves,” she said.
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