Association Between K–12 School Mask Policies and School-Associated COVID-19 Outbreaks — Maricopa and Pima Counties, Arizona, July–August 2021

Mask policies were abstracted from publicly available school COVID-19 mitigation plans, which must be posted online per Executive Order 2020–51.† A school-associated outbreak was defined as the occurrence of two or more laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases§ among students or staff members at the school within a 14-day period and at least 7 calendar days after school started, and that was otherwise consistent with the Council for State and Territorial Epidemiologists 2020 outbreak definition¶ and Arizona’s school-associated outbreak definition.** In Arizona, school-associated outbreaks are required to be reported to the local public health agency within 24 hours; data are stored in Arizona’s Medical Electronic Disease Surveillance Intelligence System. School-associated COVID-19 outbreaks and school characteristics among K–12 public noncharter schools, by school mask policy — Maricopa and Pima Counties, Arizona, July–August 2021Return to your place in the text Characteristic All schools no. (%) School mask requirements no. of schools (%) p-value* None* Early* Late* (N = 999) (n = 480) (n = 210) (n = 309) School-associated outbreak†