Jan. 27 (UPI) —<\/span> Child-care facilities in the United States that required those enrolled to wear face coverings early in the COVID-19 pandemic saw 13% fewer closures within the following year than programs without these rules, a study published Thursday by JAMA Network Open found.<\/p>\n In addition, facilities that maintained mask requirements for children from fall 2020 through spring 2021 experienced 14% fewer closures due to COVID-19 outbreaks than those without them, the data showed.\n<\/p>\n<\/article>\n The findings demonstrate that masking requirements help prevent virus outbreaks and allow facilities to remain open, the researchers said.<\/p>\n “We have been seeing increased numbers of children, especially young children not yet able to be vaccinated against COVID-19, admitted to our children’s hospital,” study co-author Dr. Thomas Murray said in a press release.\n<\/p>\n “Child masking recommendations for children 2 years and older may be an effective means for keeping young children in childcare programs and potentially lowering their risk for COVID-19,” said Murray, associate medical director for infection prevention at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital.<\/p>\n Most children in childcare facilities are age 5 years and younger and thus are not yet eligible for COVID-19 vaccination, meaning they may be more vulnerable to serious illness from the virus, according to Murray and his colleagues.\n<\/p>\n Many facilities and school districts across the country are strengthening masking requirements in response to the surge in COVID-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant of the virus, which has caused a rise in hospitalizations among children.\n<\/p>\n Still, the masking requirements have come over the objections of some parents and been challenged in the courts.<\/p>\n For this study, Murray and his colleagues collected data from 6,654 child-care facilities in all 50 states during a one-year period, from May 2020 through June 2021.<\/p>\n During the study period, 43% of the included facilities had closed at least temporarily due to a suspected or confirmed case of COVID-19 in either a child or staff member, the data showed.\n<\/p>\n Nine percent of the facilities included in the analysis required children age 2 years and older to wear face masks during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the researchers said.<\/p>\n That percentage increased to 33% by May 2021, according to the researchers.<\/p>\n In addition, 64% of the facilities reported that all adult staff were wearing masks in May 2021, they said.<\/p>\n Although several safety measures were studied, including 6-foot social distancing and staggered arrivals and departures, child masking had the most effect on whether a facility was able to remain open, the researchers said.\n<\/p>\n Six-foot social distancing of seating and cots in childcare facilities was associated with a 7% reduction in the odds of COVID-19-related closures, the data showed.<\/p>\n “Until children under 5 years old are able to be vaccinated against COVID-19, they are a particularly vulnerable population,” Murray said.<\/p>\n “We need to ensure that the adults and older children around them are vaccinated and following other proven precautions for keeping young children safe,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 1\/5 Masking requirements for children age 2 years and older allowed child-care facilities to remain open during the pandemic, according to a new study. File photo by John Angelillo\/UPI | License Photo Jan. 27 (UPI) — Child-care facilities in the United States that required those enrolled to wear face coverings early in the COVID-19 pandemic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":768675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[3387,261,3388,3389,3390,2402,28],"class_list":["post-768674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-childcare","tag-covid19","tag-facilities","tag-masks","tag-outbreaks","tag-prevent","tag-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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![\"Masks](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Masks-prevent-COVID-19-outbreaks-at-child-care-facilities-study-says.jpg\" "\\"Masks")
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Masking requirements for children age 2 years and older allowed child-care facilities to remain open during the pandemic, according to a new study. File photo by John Angelillo\/UPI | License Photo<\/div>\n\n