US backs distance of 3 feet between students for reopening schools

Reuters :
The US government on Friday updated its Covid-19 mitigation guidance, halving the acceptable distance between students who are wearing masks to at least three feet from at least six feet, potentially easing the path for schools that have struggled to reopen under previous guidelines.
The new recommendation from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is a boost to the Biden administration’s goal of reopening in-person learning for millions of public school students without sparking coronavirus outbreaks.
“The revised CDC guidance is a great step,” said Dr Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
It “reflects the fact that schools… are not drivers of infections,” he added.
Many schools continue to teach students remotely more than a year after the novel coronavirus prompted widespread closures across the United States.
The new guidance was based on data from schools in Utah, Missouri and Florida that suggests transmission of Covid-19 in schools is relatively low when precautions such as mask-wearing are employed, including in cases where students do not maintain six feet of distance.
The guidance applies to students from kindergarten through high school and in areas with low, moderate, and substantial community transmission of Covid-19.
Middle and high school students in communities with high levels of Covid-19 should stay six feet apart unless their schoolday contact can be limited to a single small group of students and staff, CDC said.
“I want to emphasize that these recommendations are specific to students in classrooms with universal mask-wearing,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a news conference.