Our prior posts included lots of scientific data about steps to open schools safely. Today we'd like to share some opinion pieces by scientists that summarize how many of us, many of you, are probably feeling.

One Washington Post op-ed by Joseph Allen (Harvard University's T.H.Chan School of Public Health) and Sara Bleich (Professor of Public Health Policy at the T.H. Chan School) discusses how three-foot distancing should suffice for students in public elementary and secondary schools, due to lower infection rates among children and teens. It also discusses how teachers can maintain six-foot distance themselves and preserve a high level of protection from coronavirus (November 2020).

More recently, a February 2021 Vox article by Boston Medical Center's Ben Linas, infectious disease physician and epidemiologist, discusses the imminent need for resuming full-time school with three-foot distancing by at least April1 of this year. 

"In settings like school, where everyone is wearing a face covering, there really is no measurable difference in risk between being three feet and six feet apart. That is why there is no official guidance from any relevant public health body that mandates six-foot distancing at all times. Even the new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention school strategy, released February 12, doesn’t address the key problems in the existing guidance to move us forward." (-Ben Linas)