Two studies released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention add to the growing body of evidence that mask mandates help stop the spread of COVID-19 in schools.
One of the studies examined 999 K-12 schools in Arizona’s two most populous counties, Maricopa and Pima, after they resumed in-person learning in late July.
Schools that did not have mask mandates were 3.5 times more likely to have COVID-19 outbreaks than schools that enforced universal mask wearing in-doors.
The New York Times explains:
Only 21 percent of the schools implemented a universal mask mandate upon opening, and nearly half had no mask requirement at all. Another roughly 30 percent enacted a mask requirement about 15 days after school started.
Between July 15 and Aug. 31, there were 191 school-associated virus outbreaks that occurred about a week after school started. The majority of them — 113 outbreaks, or nearly 60 percent of the total — occurred in schools with no mask requirement.
Only 16 outbreaks, or 8 percent of the total, took place in schools that implemented mask requirements regardless of vaccination status from the start. There were 62 outbreaks, or about one-third of the total amount, in schools that implemented a mask requirement after the school year had already started.
The Editorial Board of the Arizona Republic highlighted the research in a piece published Sunday, arguing that local school districts should be empowered to make decisions based on “current science and public health directives, not fiat from the governor, [Republican Doug Ducey].”
Ducey has moved to withhold funding from schools that violate his ban on mask mandates. The Arizona Republic writes:
The irony is that Ducey used to claim that his pandemic decisions would be based on public health, not politics. Yet he has made it his mission of late to stand in the way of public health recommendations.
He needs to back off – and the judge deciding the constitutionality of several measures that were included in the state budget should say so.
The budget-enacted ban on mask mandates in schools goes into effect on Sept. 29, which could put thousands more students at risk and erase the lower transmission rates we’ve seen in recent weeks, particularly among school-age children.
The second CDC study examined the link between mask requirements in schools and the number of pediatric COVID-19 cases on a county-wide level. It found that counties with no school mask requirement experienced more than twice as many pediatric cases (35 for every 100,000) than counties with universal masking (16 for every 100,000).
The study examined just 17% of U.S counties, so the CDC cautions “the results may not be generalizable.” But the agency added, “School mask requirements, along with other prevention strategies, including COVID-19 vaccination, are critical to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in schools.”
CDC data indicates that more than 900,000 students across 44 states have been impacted by school closings between August 1 and mid-September.
CBS News provides important context:
Teenagers have recently made up the majority of weekly cases, according to the CDC, with elderly adults making up some of the lowest numbers of weekly cases.
The new research comes amid ongoing debates over mask mandates — a hot-button issue in some parts of the country.
Several states, including Florida, Texas and Arizona, have attempted to ban school districts from enforcing masks. Meanwhile, schools in Iowa, South Carolina, Tennessee are undergoing investigations from the Department of Education for their mask mandate bans, with the department saying the decision can put students’ health in jeopardy.
In July, the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended universal mask wearing in schools.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said last month that most school outbreaks have occurred in places that have not followed public health recommendations. “In our outbreak investigations, large-scale quarantines or large number of cases are generally occurring in schools, because schools are not following our guidance, particularly our recommendations for teachers as well as students aged 12 and over to be vaccinated and for everyone right now to be masked,” she said on August 27th.
“I want to strongly appeal to those districts who have not implemented prevention strategies and encourage them to do the right thing to protect the children under their care,” Walensky added. “We know these multi-layered mitigation strategies work, and thanks to the American Rescue Plan schools have the resources to implement these strategies.”
