In a major policy revision intended to encourage more schools to welcome children back to in-person instruction, federal health officials on Friday relaxed the six-foot distancing rule for elementary school students, saying they need only remain three feet apart in classrooms as long as everyone is wearing a mask.
The three-foot rule also now applies to students in middle schools and high schools, as long as community transmission is not high, officials said. When transmission is high, however, these students must be at least six feet apart, unless they are taught in cohorts, or small groups that are kept separate from others, and the cohorts are kept six feet apart.
The six-foot rule still applies in the community at large, officials emphasized, and for teachers and other adults who work in schools, who must maintain that distance from other adults and from students.
Most schools are already operating at least partially in person, and evidence suggests they are doing so relatively safely. Research shows in-school spread can be mitigated with simple safety measures such as masking, distancing, hand-washing and open windows.
“The big discussion is about three feet versus six feet, and there’s no question that going from six feet to three feet is going to add a small amount of additional risk,” said Linsey Marr, an expert in airborne viruses at Virginia Tech. “But so far, from studies we’ve seen, the difference between three feet and six feet is not substantial.”
“My one caveat is that they should really make it clear that you can go to three feet only if you have done everything else correctly,” she added. “You’re requiring masking, you have checked your ventilation and added filtration if the ventilation’s not good — those types of things.”
Dr. Westyn Branch-Elliman, an infectious diseases specialist at the VA Boston Healthcare System, led a recent study on schools in Massachusetts that concluded three feet was a safe distance. “The reality is that the biggest barrier to getting kids back in school was this question of three versus six feet,” she said. “This breaks down a couple major barriers to getting kids back to school.”
In a statement, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that “transmission dynamics are different in older students — that is, they are more likely to be exposed to SARS-CoV-2 and spread it than younger children.”
In announcing the change, the C.D.C. director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, cited findings from studies in several states. “We are following the science,” she said.
Teachers’ unions across the country have argued forcefully for six-feet of distancing, and have lobbied the C.D.C. and the Biden administration to maintain the previous guidance.
On Friday, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second-largest educators’ union, released a statement saying she would “reserve judgment” on the new distancing guidelines pending further review of research on how the virus behaves in school settings. Becky Pringle, president of the largest teachers’ union, the National Education Association, raised similar concerns.
At the White House virus briefing on Friday, Dr. Walensky said she had spoken to the teachers unions. “They know that we need to follow the science and to make our guidance based on that science, and they’ve been very respectful of that,” she said.
Still, the statement from the C.D.C. lags behind some local health agencies across the country. Illinois and Massachusetts have already indicated that three feet of distance can be appropriate in schools. County-level health officials have also played an important role in guiding the decisions of school boards and superintendents, who have often been overwhelmed by conflicting public health guidelines.
Dr. Walensky explained that the agency is always updating its guidance as new evidence becomes available. A recent study in Boston found no significant differences in the number of infections in school districts in Massachusetts that adopted a three-foot rule, when compared with those that required six feet of distance. Additional C.D.C. studies examining safety in schools were also released Friday.
The new guidance emphasizes that good air flow and ventilation in school buildings is a critical component of maintaining a safe environment, and continues to stress multiple layers of preventive behaviors including universal masking, hand washing, cleaning buildings and doing contact tracing, combined with isolation and quarantine.
Adults in schools must continue to stay six feet apart from other adults and from students, officials said. The six foot rule still applies in common areas of schools like lobbies and auditoriums, any time students are eating or drinking and cannot wear a mask, and during activities that involve more exhalation — like singing, shouting, band practice, sports or any exercise, activities that “should be moved outdoors or to large well-ventilated spaces whenever possible.”
Other scientists say the guidelines may not go far enough. There’s not clear evidence that high levels of community transmission make in-person schooling riskier, said Dr. Elissa Perkins, the director of emergency medicine infectious disease management at Boston University School of Medicine, who co-authored the Massachusetts study.
“I applaud the move to get elementary schools back in person regardless of community transmission.” she said. “And I also understand that there is some hesitancy about applying that to middle and high school students, although I’m not sure that it is fully in keeping with the evidence that we’ve seen to date.”
While the majority of school buildings are currently open at least partially, the six-foot rule has prevented many from shifting to full-time, in-person schedules.
In liberal states and districts where teachers’ unions have collective bargaining power, the new C.D.C. guidance may strengthen the negotiating position of district officials seeking to return students to more normal, in-person schedules.
But many issues remain contentious and unresolved. Although the C.D.C. is continuing to recommend six feet of distance when children are eating, the fact that students need to remove their masks at lunch has raised concerns for educators and their unions.
“Theoretically, this should allow for normal school scheduling, full time, five days a week for families who want to send their kids back,” said Katie Braude, the founder and chief executive of the Los Angeles parent advocacy organization Speak UP. She acknowledged, however, that the Los Angeles public school district is a behemoth and “does not tend to be nimble.”
“While we’d like to be optimistic,” she said, “the best we may be able to hope for at this point is a more normal fall.”
It is not unusual, across the country, for schools to remain closed one day per week — typically Wednesdays — for what is sometimes described as a day of “deep cleaning.” Yet many experts have emphasized that because the coronavirus is spread through the air, surface disinfection is less important than masking and ventilation.
The days out of school are used by many teachers to prepare lessons and strategies for what remains a new and challenging mode of instruction, in which some students are in classrooms while others remain at home. Indeed, there is still a significant minority of parents, many of them Black, Hispanic and Asian, who are hesitant to return their children to schools during the pandemic.
C.D.C. officials relied on the findings of several other new studies about transmission in schools to rewrite their guidelines. The studies, published Friday, examined viral transmission in schools in Florida, St. Louis and Springfield, Mo., and Salt Lake County, Utah. The findings varied, but all papers emphasized the critical role that universal mask-wearing plays in curbing school-associated infections.
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