Brown University: No Correlation Between School Mask Mandates and COVID Cases

Abstract

This paper reports on the correlation of mitigation practices with staff and student COVID-19 case rates in Florida, New York, and Massachusetts during the 2020-2021 school year. We analyze data collected by the COVID-19 School Response Dashboard and focus on student density, ventilation upgrades, and masking. We find higher student COVID-19 rates in schools and districts with lower in-person density but no correlations in staff rates. Ventilation upgrades are correlated with lower rates in Florida but not in New York. We do not find any correlations with mask mandates. All rates are lower in the spring, after teacher vaccination is underway.

Excerpt

Mask mandates only vary across Florida. Some districts require masks for students and staff, some for staff only and some for neither. In terms of raw means, staff rates are higher in districts which do not have mask mandates for staff or students, although these differences are small. The differences are not significant in analyses which adjust for community rates. In all analyses, rates are similar for staff in districts with mask mandates for both students and staff versus those with staff-only mandates. Further, we do not see a correlation between mask mandates and COVID-19 rates among students in either adjusted or unadjusted analyses.

 

Source: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.19.21257467v1.full (PDF)