Mask mandates in school reduced community spread
... “Our paper analyzes how an increase of COVID-19 cases is related to the timing of opening K-12 schools across different counties in the U.S. and finds that the in-person opening of K-12 schools is positively associated with an increase in the growth rate of cases. We find that the association of K-12 school visits with case growth is stronger when mask wearing is not mandated for staff at school” ...
... preliminary analysis revealed that .. reopening .. schools resulted in a higher number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in counties with hybrid or in-person teaching than in those with remote learning. Moreover, the increase in COVID-19 cases and deaths was more pronounced in counties without mask mandates for staff members ...
... fully reopening schools involving in-person learning was associated with a 5-percentage-point increase in the weekly growth rate of COVID-19 cases. In contrast, remote learning was associated with a lower COVID-19 case growth rate ...
... the collection of .. data .. took place before the Delta variant arrived ...
“With the Delta variant, mitigation measures would be even more important for safe school openings — not only for stopping community transmission but also for stopping children from being hospitalized” ...
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/covid-19-mask-mandates-in-school-reduced-community-spread#Strengths-and-limitations
