School Masking Policies and Secondary SARS-CoV-2 Transmission.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, masking has been a widely used mitigation practice in kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12) school districts to limit within-school transmission. Prior studies attempting to quantify the impact of masking have assessed total cases within schools; however, the metric that more optimally defines effectiveness of mitigation practices is within-school transmission, or secondary cases. We estimated the impact of various masking practices on secondary transmission in a cohort of K-12 schools.

Methods

We performed a multistate, prospective, observational, open cohort study from July 26, 2021 to December 13, 2021. Districts reported mitigation practices and weekly infection data. Districts that were able to perform contact tracing and ad

SUBMITTER: Boutzoukas AE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9647584 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature