Getting vaccinated is the best way to prevent COVID-19. When teachers, staff, and students 5 years and older are fully vaccinated, COVID-19 outbreaks in schools or child care programs are less likely to occur.

Everyone 5 years and older is now eligible for COVID-19 vaccination.

Find a COVID-19 Vaccine: Search vaccines.gov, text your ZIP code to 438829, or call 1-800-232-0233 to find locations near you.

Your child’s school or ECE program may provide information about how to get vaccinated to families. They may also offer flexible options for excused absences to allow students time to get vaccinated and stay home if they have side effects after vaccinations.

When teachers, staff, and children who are not fully vaccinated wear a mask, they protect others as well as themselves.

• Given new evidence on the B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant, CDC recommends universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status.
• Mask use is recommended for people who are not fully vaccinated, including children and staff.
• Children under 2 years of age should not wear a mask.

School and early care and education program administrators may choose to make mask use universally required in your child’s school or ECE program if

• Children are younger than 5 and are not yet eligible for vaccination.
• The number of COVID-19 cases is increasing or high in the school or your community.
• The number of cases caused by a variant of concern is increasing or high in the school or your community.
• The school or ECE program is not able to monitor the vaccine status of children, teachers, or staff.
• The school or ECE program cannot enforce mask policies that are not universal.
• The number of students or people in your community who are vaccinated is low.

Schools and early care and education programs can make exceptions for children who cannot wear a mask or cannot safely wear a mask.

CDC is announcing that it will be amending its Face Masks Order to not require people to wear a mask in outdoor areas of conveyances (if such outdoor areas exist on the conveyance) or while outdoors at transportation hubs.

CDC continues to recommend wearing of masks in these areas by people who are not fully vaccinated.

Your child’s school or child care program will have a policy about physical distancing.

Young children need to be close to caregivers during diapering, feeding, and comforting. Your child’s ECE program may use cohorting. Cohorting means keeping children together in a small group and having each group stay together throughout an entire day. This is used to limit the number of children and staff who come in contact with each other. Your child’s program may also maximize time outdoors, stagger drop-off and pick-up times, and maintain 6 feet between cohorts.

For more information about physical distancing in schools, see Guidance for COVID-19 Prevention in K-12 Schools and COVID-19 Guidance for Operating Early Care and Education/Child Care Programs.

Screening testing helps K-12 schools identify people infected with COVID-19 so they can quickly isolate them and provide information for anyone who may have been exposed to COVID-19. Decisions about screening testing may be made at the state or local level.

Quarantine if you have been in close contact (within 6 feet of someone for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period) with someone who has COVID-19, unless you have been fully vaccinated. People who are fully vaccinated do NOT need to quarantine after contact with someone who had COVID-19 unless they have symptoms. However, fully vaccinated people should get tested 3-5 days after their exposure, even if they don’t have symptoms and wear a mask indoors in public for 14 days following exposure or until their test result is negative.

Improving ventilation can reduce the number of virus particles in the air.

Your child’s school or early care and education program may:

• Open multiple doors and windows.
• Use child-safe fans to increase the effectiveness of open windows.
• Make changes to the heating, ventilation, or air conditioning (HVAC) or air filtration systems.
• Open or crack windows in buses and other forms of transportation, if doing so does not pose a safety risk.

Teachers and staff can:

• Teach students to wash their hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds.
• Remind students to wash hands frequently and help young children with handwashing.
• Provide hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol if handwashing is not possible. Young children should have adult supervision when using hand sanitizer.
• Set up handwashing or hand sanitizing stations at facility entrances.
• Wash their hands after holding, washing, or feeding young children.
• Wash their hands before and after changing a child’s diaper or handling infant bottles.

If your child is sick or has symptoms of COVID-19, they should stay home. Call your child’s healthcare provider for testing and care. Staying home when sick with COVID-19 keeps COVID-19 infections out of schools and early care and education programs and prevents spread to others.

Schools and early care and education programs are encouraged to work with state and local health departments to conduct contract tracing. If you are contacted by your health department about your child and a COVID-19 exposure, work with them to know if your child needs to isolate or quarantine.

Your child’s school or early care and education program may limit nonessential visitors, volunteers, and activities. Visitors should not go into schools if they are sick or have symptoms of COVID-19.

• You may not be able to enter the facility and instead may drop off and pick up your child outside.
• Alternative ways of connecting with your child’s teacher or other parents may be used, such as outdoor or virtual meetings.

Early care and education programs should not limit access to mothers who are breastfeeding their infants.

Your child’s school or ECE program may adjust where and when children eat meals. This may include:

• Physical distancing as much as possible when moving through the food service line and while eating (especially indoors).
• Using additional spaces outside of the cafeteria for mealtime seating, such as the gymnasium or outdoor areas.
• Reminding children to wash hands, before and after eating.
  Improving ventilation in spaces where children eat.

Physical play is important for children. In general, people do not need to wear masks when outdoors. In areas with high numbers of COVID-19 cases, people should consider wearing a mask in crowded outdoor settings and for activities with close contact with others who are not fully vaccinated. When physical education and play are held indoors, children and staff should wear masks. Children and staff should physically distance when possible.

Some sports may make players, coaches, and trainers more likely to get and spread COVID-19 because of physical contact and increased breathing. Other extracurricular activities, such as band, choir, theater, and school clubs that meet indoors, may also make students and staff more likely to get or spread COVID-19.

• Students should not participate in these activities when they have symptoms of COVID-19 and should be tested.
• Students who participate in indoor sports and other higher-risk activities should continue to wear masks and physically distance as much as possible.