The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CDC to consider reducing spacing between students
Many school leaders say 6- foot guideline has forced classrooms to stay closed.
The director of the WASHINGTON — Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday her agency would “soon” revisit i ts guidelines encouraging schools to keep 6 feet of distance between people, saying new evidence has emerged that 3 feet may be enough.
The 6- foot guideline has discouraged many school leaders from reopening their classrooms full- time. Instead, to reduce the number of students in classrooms at any given time, many school systems teach students part- time in school and part- time from home.
“As soon as our guidance came out, it became very clear that six feet was among the things that was keeping schools closed,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday. “And in that context, science evolves.”
During questioning from members of the committee, she said she hoped to update the guidance “soon.” A change may be announced as early as today, according to an administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly.
President Joe Biden has made reopening schools a priority, saying he wants most K- 8 schools open five days a week by the end of next month. Some survey data suggest that he is close to that threshold, but millions of children still do not have access to full- time — or in some cases, any — in- person classes.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization have endorsed a three- foot dist ance st andard, and many schools in the United States and abroad have adopted that. On Wednesday, Loudoun County Public Schools in Virginia said it would open four days a week in April, a change made possible by reducing the required distance from 6 to 3 feet.
The argument for 3 feet of distancing got a boost last week from a study in Clinical Infectious Diseases that found little difference in infection rates of students and employees in 48 Massachusetts districts that adopted a 3- foot distancing minimum and 194 that opted for 6. The authors concluded that schools can operate safely with 3 feet of distance as long as they require masks.
Walensky said this week the CDC had launched other studies on distancing as the agency revisits the subject. She said the results are forthcoming.
Many t eachers and t heir unions oppose changing the metric to 3 feet.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said a decision to relax the guidance is premature without studies in urban areas, where buildings are older and classrooms were more crowded from the start.
“They are compromising the one enduring public health missive that we’ve gotten from the beginning of this pandemic i n order to squeeze more kids into schools,” she said. “I think that is problematic until we have real evidence in these harder- to- open places about what the effect is.”