Kids will only need to stay 3 feet apart.

For the past year, alongside face masks, social distancing has been a common sight in public places, mandated by the Centers for Disease Control in order to lessen the spread of the coronavirus and COVID-19. The 6-foot requirement has become a staple of reopening schools that have had to redesign entire classroom layouts to ensure that every student can remain the proper distance from one another. As vaccines continue to proliferate and COVID case numbers continue to drop, CDC researchers have come to the conclusion that we can lessen these requirements on students, if only a little bit.

The CDC announced today that they have officially relaxed their social distancing requirements for all children, who are now required to stay only 3 feet apart instead of 6. These new rules apply to all elementary, middle school, and high school students, provided their school is not located in a COVID-19 hot zone.

CDC researchers monitoring schools in Utah that weren’t big enough to facilitate a full 6 feet for every child noted that COVID outbreaks among the students there were extremely few and far between. “Despite high community incidence and an inability to space students’ classroom seats more than 6 feet apart,” the researchers wrote, “this investigation found low SARS-CoV-2 transmission and no school-related outbreaks in 20 Salt Lake County elementary schools.”

While this blanket lowering will be helpful in spacing out classrooms and getting kids into them, it does have some restrictions. Firstly, face masks are still required in schools, and in situations where masks cannot be worn, such as during lunch time, 6 feet is still advised. Adult faculty members are also still required to remain 6 feet apart from both students and each other.