Is 3-foot distancing in schools really safe?

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California public health officials now say that schools can open with just three feet of distance between students, after the CDC updated its own distancing guidelines.

The move may help to reopen classrooms faster because six feet of distancing is a high bar to meet in many schools and has proven a significant barrier in reopening.

Teachers unions have issued their concerns, but public health experts say that the data shows that it is safe.

“We think this new update by the CDC is quite good,” said Dr. Joseph Allen, Professor in the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health, and Director of Healthy Buildings on the Horizon, which has issued detailed guidelines for many types of buildings about how to reduce risk of virus transmission.

He and several colleagues criticized the CDC’s previous school reopening guidelines as too strict.

"(The new guidance) actually follows all of the latest science on what we know about risks in school, how to mitigate them, and also a lot of evidence now that 3-foot distancing for student-to-student interaction is okay if those other controls are in place," he told KCBS Radio's "Ask An Expert."

He said that when there are good ventilation and filtration systems in schools and all students are wearing masks, the evidence shows that three feet of distance is enough.

The CDC also released a study showing that virus transmission was low in schools where all students were wearing masks and were distanced just three feet apart, even when community transmission was high.

Dr. Allen said he believes the guidelines are safe even at the high school level.

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