Whether masking requirements effectively prevented COVID-19 in schools and should be used as a mitigation strategy for future outbreaks is a highly contested issue, with children as young as two years old expected to mask up during the worst restrictions.
A reanalysis of a highly influential Boston mask study claiming continued mask mandates reduced COVID-19 cases in schools found districts that dropped masking requirements actually experienced the largest decreases in COVID-19 cases—and failed to identify any causal relationship between mask mandates and infection rates.
