Schools that instituted a universal masking requirement last year reported 72% fewer COVID-19 infections transmitted within the school when compared with schools with optional mask requirements, according to a multi-state study to be pre-published in Pediatrics online. After taking into account the size of the school districts and how many weeks the districts contributed data, masked schools saw up to 87% less transmission. The study, “School Masking Policies and Secondary SARS-CoV-2 Transmission,” will be pre-published online Weds., March 9, 2022, and will be published in the June 2022 issue of Pediatrics. Among 1,112,899 students and 157,069 staff attending 61 K–12 school districts, universal masking was associated with markedly reduced secondary transmission compared with optional masking. Secondary (within school) transmissions made up 10% of all cases reported; 90% of cases were primary (transmitted within the community). Participating school districts working with local health departments were asked to provide weekly counts of primary cases, secondary cases, and quarantines for staff and students during the study period, between July 26, 2021, and Dec. 13, 2021. The Delta variant was predominant during this time. For analysis, districts were characterized into one of the following categories: universal, optional, or partial masking. Districts that optionally masked throughout the study period had 3.6 times the rate of secondary transmission as universally masked districts. Schools that participated were in North Carolina, Wisconsin, Missouri, California, Washington, Georgia, Tennessee, Kansas and Texas. The authors observe that maintaining in-person instruction is critical for children. They suggest that by providing districts with the tools to monitor transmission data in real time enables schools to respond to changing national and local policies, as well as adjust their mitigation efforts to keep in-person education as safe as possible for the remainder of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 67,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults.