Examining the robustness of 3ft versus 6ft of physical distancing in schools: a reanalysis of van den Berg et al

Van den Berg et al. [1] studied the effectiveness of school districts’ physical distancing policies on reducing the rate of SARS-CoV-2 infection among K-12 students. Finding no statistical differences between 6ft and 3ft distancing policies, the authors concluded that the“adoption of greater physical distancing between individuals in school buildings was not associated with significantly reduced rates of SARS-CoV-2 among students and staff” [1].Almost a year after publication, the authors corrected their original estimates after discovering a data error that affected approximately 5% of district-weeks [2]. This strengthened several observed associations in favor of 6ft, yet all remained statisticall yinsignificant.