CDC Releases New Social Distancing Guidelines for Students
The Claim
The CDC changed the social distancing guidelines to 3 feet.
News posted on
Emerging story
According to some on social media, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) changed its COVID-19 recommendation on social distancing from 6 feet to 3 feet.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar discovered that while the CDC did not change the guidelines for COVID-19 socially distancing for adults, it did relax its social distancing guidelines for schools. According to CBS news, students can now sit 3 feet apart in classrooms. The move comes after schools in some states recently disregarded previous CDC guidelines, using 3 feet as their standard. Studies of what happened in some of the states helped sway the agency, said Greta Massetti, who leads the CDC’s community interventions task force.
According to NPR.org, this new recommendation also only applies if students are wearing masks. Also, the new guidelines still call for 6 feet of distance between adults and students as well as in common areas, such as auditoriums, and when masks are off, such as while eating. And the 6-foot distancing rule still applies for the general public in settings such as grocery stores.
According to CNN.com, the CDC released three new studies that it says supports social distancing of 3 feet between students, so long as everyone is wearing a mask and other prevention measures are in place. Another study recently published found there was no difference in COVID-19 rates between Massachusetts schools that mandated 3 feet of physical distance compared with 6 feet.
