A study at a U.S. university said the move to vaccine and masking mandates appeared to have brought the incidence of COVID-19 in classrooms down to virtually zero.
An essay on the study was published this week in the online THE (Times Higher Education) publication. Boston University (BU) published details of its study on August 8.
"Some Boston University employees and students feared a COVID-19 outbreak might follow the return to in-person learning in fall 2021. But a new study of the university’s 33,000 students across 140,000 class meetings found that BU’s classroom mask mandate and vaccination requirements for students and employees kept the virus at bay and the community safe," said the BU online research newsletter The Brink.
The lead author of the study was John Connor, an associate professor of microbiology, who also published his findings in the online Open Network of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
Connor said the outcome provided "solid evidence" that the steps taken by the university limited the transmission of COVID in roughly 140,000 classroom events.
That outcome offered “solid evidence that the disease mitigation events used by BU limited transmission in the classroom,” Connor said.
Boston University has since discontinued the mask mandate in classrooms. However, masking is still required on the BU Shuttle (transit) and in university health care settings.
Prof. Connor said it appears the university is ready to test the idea that COVID transmission will be low in classrooms where individuals are vaccinated.
He said that if that idea proves to be false, it would be prudent to move back to in-classroom masking.
"I am not suggesting that masking is like putting on an Iron Man suit, merely that it is likely to help," Connor said.
