CDC EASES SCHOOL COVID RULES
New federal guidance allows desks to be placed 3 feet apart
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced an update to its coronavirus prevention guidelines Friday that reduces the minimum required physical distance in classrooms from 6 feet to 3 feet, substantially easing the way for more children to return to in-person learning on a full-time basis.
The recommendation comes with several limitations, and does not apply to adults or to other shared spaces on school grounds. Still, even with a host of caveats, the new leeway puts pressure on Gov. Gavin Newsom and other officials to relax rules and accommodate parents who are pushing for a more rapid and complete reopening.
If adopted by the state, the guidance could make it easier for California schools to bring all students back to campus at once instead of having to rely on a hybrid model that keeps students in smaller groups that are isolated from each other. The state’s recommended 6-foot distancing requirement has made it impossible to fit a full class of students into a standard-size California classroom.
The CDC says its 3-foot rule applies only in classrooms where mask use is universal. However, it can be safely implemented regardless of whether community transmission is low, moderate, substantial or high, authorities said.
And it carries an asterisk: The 6-foot rule stays in place for middle school and high school students whose communities have a high rate of transmission and where it’s not possible for students to remain in small cohorts with the same peers and staff in order to reduce the risk of viral spread. The reason, the CDC said, is that older students are more likely than younger children to be exposed to the coronavirus and spread it to others.
Outside of the classroom, the agency recommended that the 6foot rule be followed in these settings:
• Between adults, and between adults and students, in school buildings
• In common areas, such as lobbies and auditoriums
• In situations when masks can’t be worn, such as when eating
• During activities when increased exhalation occurs, such as singing, shouting, band practice, sports or exercise (these activities should be moved outdoors or to large, well-ventilated spaces wher
ever possible, the agency noted)
The recommendation for 6 feet of physical distancing still holds in community settings outside of the classroom, the CDC added.
The new federal guidelines are under state review and updated guidance “will be issued in the coming days,” said Rodger Butler, a spokesman for the California Health and Human Services Agency.
That’s not fast enough for parents who have been pushing for reopening. California ranks last among the states in terms of the amount of instructional time students spend on campus, according to a widely followed tracker.
“For a year now, Gov. Newsom has said he follows the science. The science now clearly states that three feet of distance in schools will keep our children and teachers safe,” said Megan Bacigalupi, a parent advocate with the recently formed group OpenSchoolsCA. “We urge the governor to align with the CDC’s revised guidance immediately, which would pave the way for all California students to return to the classroom full time.”
The regional chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics echoed that demand and called on the state to “decouple” school reopenings from the rate of community spread. The risks to children’s emotional and academic development if schools stay closed outweigh the risks of returning to a safely operated campus, the medical group said.
“Urgent action is the only hope to reopen schools this year and prevent severe disruption of the academic year ahead,” the doctors wrote in an open letter to Newsom that garnered more than 20 pages of signatures from health professionals.
Although the governor has prioritized the rapid reopening of campuses, he has stopped short of attempting to mandate it.
The new federal advice comes on the heels of a study of 537,336 students and 99,390 staff members in 251 Massachusetts school districts. After accounting for differences in community infection rates, researchers found that coronavirus case rates among both students and staff were essentially the same in schools that adopted a 3-foot rule as in those that followed the 6-foot rule. The findings were published last week in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
“Lower physical distancing policies can be adopted in school settings with masking mandates without negatively impacting student or staff safety,” the study authors concluded.
The CDC also released three studies Friday that it said bolstered the evidence for its decision. One of them examined 20 elementary schools in Utah’s Salt Lake County and found that of 1,041 students and staff who were exposed to an infected person at school in December and January, only five of them wound up with a confirmed, school-related infection. During that time, 86 percent of students wore masks and the median distance between students’ seats was 3 feet.
Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist at UC San Francisco, praised the CDC’s move.
“I think it’s a great thing,” she said, pointing out that the World Health Organization already recommends just one meter, or 3.28 feet, of physical distancing in general.
“Since the requirement of the six-foot distancing rule has been identified as a hindrance to school openings in some situations, this change by the CDC is a welcome one and will hopefully facilitate more school openings here in California,” Gandhi said.
Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, agreed that the change was “a good idea,” adding that he didn’t think aerosol transmission was a major risk outside of certain health care settings, or in situations in which singing or vigorous exercise was taking place.
But Lydia Bourouiba, director of the Fluid Dynamics of Disease Transmission Laboratory at MIT, pointed out that the risk in classrooms depends on a range of factors — how many people are in a room at one time, what activities are taking place, how long they’re in the room, how well it’s ventilated, whether everyone is properly masked and what the specific airflow patterns in the room are.
Any guidance needs to consider how all of these factors interact to raise or lower risk, she said.
“Three feet is not recommended, unless it has been carefully assessed for a particular room, activity, occupancy and duration, ventilation, flow patterns, and highgrade masking is in place at all times,” she said.
Requiring 6 feet of distance hasn’t stopped schools from reopening, but it has prevented some of them from offering a full-day schedule five days a week.
The complications caused by 6-foot distancing requirements were at the heart of a lawsuit filed in North County. The plaintiffs sought a full schedule for students rather than a hybrid schedule, which would have allowed students on campus for no more than half of their instructional hours.
The judge overseeing that case issued a temporary restraining order this week that barred the state from enforcing its distancing guidelines. State health authorities had established a standard of 4 feet but also allowed counties to require 6 feet of distancing.
Leaders of national teachers unions greeted the revised guidelines with caution.
Randi Weingarten, who heads the American Federation of Teachers, expressed concern that the new recommendations were driven more by political considerations and logistics — a desire to fit more students into a classroom — than by settled science.
“While we hope the CDC is right, we will reserve judgment,” Weingarten said in a statement. “We have asked the CDC to include urban and under-resourced districts in future studies, something it has not yet done,” she added.
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, spoke in similar terms.
“The change to three feet distance for students in classrooms will be particularly challenging for large urban school districts and those that have not yet had access to the resources necessary to fully implement the very COVID-19 mitigation measures that the CDC says are essential,” Pringle said.