For months, President Biden promised he would let the science dictate his coronavirus strategy — that is, until the science contradicted one of his political allies.
Biden’s White House openly opposed one of its own experts this week after the new head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said teachers do not need to be vaccinated for schools to reopen safely.
“They have not released their guidance yet, from the CDC, yet, on the vaccination of teachers and what would be needed to ensure the safe reopening of schools. We’d defer to that [guidance], which we hope to see soon,” press secretary Jen Psaki said when asked about CDC Director Rochelle Walensky’s comments. “The president himself has talked about the importance of a priority of vaccinating teachers.”
“Dr. Walensky spoke in her personal capacity,” Psaki continued. “Obviously, she’s the head of the CDC, but we’re going to wait for the final guidance to come out so we can use that as a guide for schools around the country.”
By all standards, Walensky is one of the experts Biden vowed to respect. She’s the head of the CDC, a member of the White House COVID Response Team, and she has represented the White House in a number of coronavirus press briefings already. So why is the White House dismissing her advice?
The answer is simple: Biden doesn’t want to make an enemy of the teachers unions, which are fighting tooth and nail to prevent schools from reopening. It does not matter that the teachers unions’ reasoning defies the data, nor does it matter that many of the unions’ members have already been vaccinated. Biden does not want to lose their support, so he’s trying to remove himself from the debate entirely.
This should be a scandal. Biden promised on the campaign trail that he’d do everything he could to reopen schools quickly, and he promised to let the science guide his decision-making. It turns out he lied on both counts. A little more than two weeks into his presidency, Biden has already broken both of those promises, refusing to stand up to the teachers unions that are holding the public school system hostage and defying his own experts when they talk about what the science says.
If Biden was really “listening to the science,” he’d be encouraging all states and cities to reopen their public schools immediately. Study after study has shown that COVID-19 transmission in schools is minimal, even when teachers have not been vaccinated.
Perhaps Biden should add a caveat to his commitment: “Follow the science, unless it’s inconvenient, in which case, science is just speaking in its personal capacity.”
