"Evidence gathered this fall around the world and in the U.S. suggests that schools can open, even in conditions of wide community spread, and achieve low and even near zero transmission in the school building. This evidence, combined with the benefits to learners of in-person schooling and harms of remote schooling, suggests that the time has come to pursue in-person learning across most school contexts, provided that the school in question has established reasonable infection control protocols to safeguard student, educator (including paraprofessionals), and staff safety. The federal governments should include investments in school infection control in the next coronavirus relief package.
...The most important elements of infection control that matter are:
- universal masking (including while speaking)
- hand and bathroom hygiene
- achieving 4-6 air changes per hour of 'clean' air through any combination of ventilation and filtration (or outdoor classrooms)
- 3 ft social distancing for young learners at all levels of community spread
- 6ft social distancing for high schools when levels of community spread rise above 100/100,000 daily new cases; 3ft social distancing below that level
- robust quarantine policies and contact tracing practices
- and, where feasible, surveillance/screening testing, also discussed below under “testing.”
"
(boldface mine)
General-purpose guidelines for all schools, which promises near-zero infection rates. If this is true (I haven't validated the research behind it myself yet: please drop me a line if you have) it's very important news.