The CDC have published Friday fresh findings showing that masks in schools can limit the transmission of COVID-19. Similar studies have been published. One research examined data from schools in Maricopa and Pima Counties in Arizona when they started studying in person again for school year 2021-2022 at the end of July. Both counties represent around 75% of the people of the state.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention observed that Coronavirus outbreaks were 3.5 times higher in the K-12 schools without mask mandates at the start of the school year than those in schools where all people, irrespective of their vaccine status, were expected to wear a mask inside from school day one.
21% of the research’s 999 schools had a mandate for masks early on, 30.9% of them had a requirement for masks between nine and 17 days after the year began and 48% had no requirements for masks. Of the 191 occurrences of COVID from 15 July to 31 August in those schools, 113 had no masks at all in schools. The smallest frequency of outbreaks in schools with an early mask mandate.
Per the Johns Hopkins University, Arizona had an increasing trend in weekly COVID cases. The effect of mask regulations across the U.S. was also discussed in another CDC research. Researchers discovered that following the school year, counties without the necessity of a mask at their schools had a greater prevalence of COVID pediatric cases than schools with requirements. In the first week of classes schools that required masks, the survey showed, were in 16.32 cases for 100,000 students, without 34.85 cases for every 100,000 children. Nevertheless, the researchers highlighted that throughout the counties, all kids, and not only people of school age, were included in the statistics. They also mentioned that in analyses the rates of vaccination and the data for school tests were not monitored and the sample size of the provinces is limited.
