During the Covid-19 pandemic, school and university administrators have implemented mask and vaccine mandates with the intention to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV2, however, these policies haven’t had much effect, according to recent peer-reviewed studies.
A research paper published on May 18 underscores the deficiencies of current mask and vaccination mandates, as these policies did not contain the spread of SARS-CoV2 at Cornell University. Toward the end of the semester in 2021, the almost completely vaccinated Cornell University shut down its campus due to a surge in COVID cases.
Another study found that secondary transmissions were “markedly lower in school compared with household settings, suggesting that household transmission is more important than school transmission in this pandemic.”
Another study from May 25 found “no significant relationship between mask mandates and case rates,” after replicating a “highly cited CDC study showing a negative association between school mask mandates and pediatric SARS-CoV-2 cases,” with a larger sample of districts and a longer time interval.
