President Biden’s chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci warned that a 100-day school reopening plan might not pan out.
The United States will not return to normalcy unless schools begin in-person coursework, Fauci said. Biden released a school reopening plan on Jan. 21 that included guidance on protocol, data collection, a unified testing strategy, $130 billion in aid for K-12 schools, and $160 billion in additional vaccine funds.
“The president is taking very seriously the issue, both from the students’ standpoint and from the teachers’ standpoint,” Fauci said at a Thursday town hall hosted by the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association. “[Biden] believes that the [K-8] schools need to reopen in the next 100 days. … That’s the goal. That may not happen, because there may be mitigating circumstances, but what he really wants to do is everything within his power to help get to that.”
He added: “We’re not going to get back to normal until we get children back into school, both for the good of the children, for the good of the parents, and for the good of the community. We want to make sure we do that by giving the teachers and the teams associated with teachers the resources that they need to do that. The idea of, ‘Go do it on your own’ — that doesn’t work.”
Fauci, who served in a prominent position under former President Donald Trump, appeared almost daily during the beginning stages of the coronavirus pandemic. Trump sparred with Fauci over the handling of the COVID-19 crisis and even retweeted a message to “#FireFauci” in April after the virus was spreading on U.S. soil.
The health authority reflected on his time with Trump and indicated that the former president’s behavior alluded to the belief that the virus is “going to go away, it’s magical, it’s going to disappear.” Fauci also lambasted the Republican for making him “anxious” after he supported alternative therapies without the “appropriate clinical trial[s].”
