Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield argued Thursday that K-12 schools are not a source of new outbreaks and should remain open for in-person classes.
“It’s small family gatherings where people become more comfortable they remove their face mask … But it’s not interschool transmission,” Redfield said at the White House Thursday. “The truth is, for kids K through 12, one of the safest places they can be … is to remain in school.”
Thursday’s briefing with the coronavirus task force was the first one in months, and President Trump was not in attendance.
“Clearly, the data strongly supports that K through 12 schools, as well as institutes of higher learning, really are not where we’re having our challenges, and it would be counterproductive … from a public health point of view” to close them, Redfield said.
School districts across the country have chosen to shut down for in-person classes in recent weeks, including Boston and Philadelphia. New York City, the largest school district in the United States, shut down in-person classes on Thursday after the city’s weekly average hit the 3% positive test rate threshold.
The national average test positive rate has reached 10%, the highest since early May, while total cases in the U.S. have surpassed 11.6 million.
