University with universal masking saw no increase in COVID-19 after ending distancing
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Key takeaways:
- COVID-19 transmission among college students is most likely to occur in social settings.
- Universal masking limited COVID-19 transmission in classroom settings even without distancing.
ORLANDO — A mid-sized university with a universal masking mandate saw no increase in COVID-19 after eliminating physical distancing requirements, according to study findings.
“This reinforces past research that has looked at college students and COVID-19 transmission and has found that that transmission among college students is more likely to occur in social settings and more likely among athletic teams,” Terri Rebmann, PhD, RN, CIC, FAPIC, professor of epidemiology and director of the Institute for Biosecurity at Saint Louis University, said in a presentation at the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology annual conference.
In the fall of 2021, after the emergence of the delta variant earlier in the year, universities and colleges implemented a patchwork of mitigation strategies to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission on campus, including vaccine requirements, universal masking, contact tracing and physical distancing.
“Physical distancing was one of the hardest things to implement and sustain. The reason for that is when you try to spread out students in the classroom, you end up using a lot of space with not a lot of students,” Rebmann said. “We had to convert our meeting spaces into classroom space, which is really not sustainable in a university setting. However, the risk of eliminating physical distancing was unknown.”
During the fall semester, which ran from Aug. 21 through Dec. 21, Saint Louis University eliminated physical distancing but continued to require the roughly 12,000 students and 6,000 employees to be up to date on COVID-19 vaccination and to wear masks. The university also performed contact tracing, testing for surveillance — including for many students moving into dorm rooms — and diagnostic testing.
Faculty were also required to keep seating charts for their classes, which Rebmann said aided in contact tracing by preventing people from forgetting who they sat near.
During the study period, 148 student and faculty cases and 1,660 associated close contacts were identified, with close contacts having an average of 1.5 exposures each. Among exposures, 31.2% occurred in social settings, 63.7% occurred in classroom settings and 5.1% had both exposure types.
Among the close contacts, 26.3% tested positive for COVID-19, and they were significantly more likely to test positive after a social exposure than after a classroom exposure.
Rebmann noted that the university had high uptake of COVID-19 vaccines among both students and faculty — 97% and 96%, respectively.
She added that although the seating charts were helpful for contact tracing, they proved largely unnecessary because while universal masking was in place, there was not a lot of classroom transmission of the virus.
“Of course, things with the pandemic have changed, but the results of this study do have implications for other communicable disease outbreaks on campus and certainly created a sense of safety among our faculty and students on campus,” Rebmann said.
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Rebmann T, et al. Assessing classroom and laboratory spread of COVID-19 after elimination of physical distancing. Presented at: APIC 2023; June 26-28, 2023; Orlando.
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