The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have updated their guidelines for schools, allowing students to be sat three feet apart from each other, NPR reports.
The new guidelines are a departure from previous suggestions since the beginning of the pandemic which called for six feet of social distance between people in indoor spaces.
The CDC "now recommends that, with universal masking, students should maintain a distance of at least 3 feet in classroom settings." The guidelines continue to recommend six feet of distancing between students and adults, as well as in more crowded spaces such as an auditorium or where students gather to eat lunch without masks on.
The six feet rule continues to apply to the general public.
The change in guidelines comes after a study from Massachusetts, encompassing over half a million students, allowed schools to choose between three feet and six feet of distancing.
"We didn't see any substantial difference in cases among students or staff in districts with 3 feet versus 6 feet, suggesting that we can open the schools safely at 3 feet, provided that some of the mitigation measures that were present here in Massachusetts are in place," said one of the study's co-authors.
"Our study adds to a growing body of worldwide data about the safety of 3 feet in school settings."
The World Health organization had already recommended that school children be sat one meter (3.3 feet) apart from each other before the CDC made the changes.
The American Academy of Pediatrics had also already recommended that students be situated less than six feet apart from each other, arguing that schools typically do not have enough space to accommodate students that far apart from each other.
Many schools have sought to solve this problem by offering their students "hybrid learning," a mixture of in-person and online classes whereby students attend school in person for two or three days a week while spending the remaining days learning from home.
However, both parents and educators have expressed concerns about such a solution, arguing that inconsistencies in learning environments have reduced student engagement even more than online classes have. Such concerns have been reflected in surveys of parents.
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