BU study says full in-person college classrooms safe without social distancing

BOSTON - Returning to full in-person learning maybe be safe this fall, if certain precautions are taken.

Researchers from the BU School of Medicine analyzed data on more than 140,000 university class meetings back in the fall of 2021. At the time, there was no physical distancing but vaccines were mandated and universal masking was enforced.

While they identified 850 cases of COVID-19 among students and faculty over the semester, after studying the genetic sequences of the viruses, none were actually confirmed to be due to in-class transmission.

This study was conducted before the highly transmissible Omicron variant but does suggest that colleges and universities may be able to safely have full in-person learning as long as there are mitigation strategies in place like vaccine mandates and universal masking.

Mallika Marshall, MD

Mallika Marshall, MD is an Emmy-award-winning journalist and physician who has served as the HealthWatch Reporter for CBS Boston/WBZ-TV for over 20 years. A practicing physician Board Certified in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, Dr. Marshall serves on staff at Harvard Medical School and practices at Massachusetts General Hospital at the MGH Chelsea Urgent Care and the MGH Revere Health Center, where she is currently working on the frontlines caring for patients with COVID-19. She is also a host and contributing editor for Harvard Health Publications (HHP), the publishing division of Harvard Medical School.

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