Fauci says US considering updated three-foot social distancing guidelines in key move to reopen schools

‘The CDC is very well aware that data are accumulating making it look more like three feet are OK under certain circumstances’

The nation’s leading infectious disease expert has suggested an update to the six-foot social distancing guidelines could mean US schools reopen much faster than previously expected. 

Speaking to CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, said a new study led by the Beth Deaconess Medical Center in Massachusetts could reshape the way students go back to school by implementing a three-foot social distancing guideline instead of the current six-foot measure. 

The researchers said there was “no substantial difference in the number of cases of Covid-19 among either students or staff” between 251 school districts in Massachusetts following either three- or six-foot social distancing rules. 

Those students all observed mask-wearing guidelines and followed other critical safety measures schools have implemented after the novel virus swept through the country last year. By following other measures and maintaining the three-foot guidelines, Dr Fauci said the updated measure would “indeed” suffice to reopen schools. 

He said the CDC was conducting its own studies and added: “When the data shows that there is an ability to be three-feet, they will act accordingly.” 

“It’s going to be soon,” he continued. “The CDC is very well aware that data are accumulating making it look more like three feet are OK under certain circumstances.” 

Dr Fauci noted he “didn’t want to get ahead of official guidelines” but promised there would be updates to the current measures in a “quite reasonable” period of time, saying: “It won’t be very long, I promise you.”

The leading public health expert has spent recent days urging Americans to get vaccinated against Covid-19, which has killed more than 534,000 people nationwide since the pandemic began last year, according to the latest tracking data. 

On Monday, Dr Fauci told reporters not to “get so fixated on this elusive number of herd immunity” and added: “We should just be concerned about getting as many people vaccinated as quickly as we possibly can, because herd immunity is still somewhat of an elusive number.”