President Biden promised to follow the science with his coronavirus response. But the last month has shown the opposite effect: Now, the science follows Joe Biden.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky made that clear for everybody. Earlier this month, she said that schools were safe to reopen regardless of vaccinations. “I want to be clear. There is increasing data to support that schools can safely reopen and that safe reopening does not suggest teachers need to be vaccinated,” she said at a briefing.
That’s the science, but it didn’t mesh with the demands of teachers unions, which Biden prioritizes above the nation’s students. So White House press secretary Jen Psaki absurdly claimed that Walensky was speaking in “her personal capacity” and that the CDC had not yet released its guidance on safe school reopenings.
Then on Friday, the CDC released its guidance, having bent to Biden’s will. On Friday, Walensky said that most of the nation’s schools should not return to in-person schooling. “At low levels of community transmission, levels that currently are only in less than 5% of our nation’s counties, CDC recommends that schools can provide full in-person instruction,” she said. This would leave 95% of all counties’ schools using partial or no in-person schooling, a clear reversal from her previous comments.
The same is true for Dr. Anthony Fauci. The media darling who talked about how “liberating” it was to work for Biden and “let the science speak” had said in November that schools should be opened. He also said that the Biden administration’s assertion that they were “starting from scratch” with a vaccination plan was false.
He has since backtracked on both statements. Fauci now says that the coronavirus relief bill being pushed through Congress, exclusively by Democrats, is necessary to reopen schools. He also deferred to Vice President Kamala Harris when she, once again, asserted that the administration was starting from scratch on a vaccine plan.
It looks like that liberating feeling was left in the honeymoon period of the administration, along with any notion that Biden cared about “the science.” There is no reason for schools to remain stuck in virtual learning outside of the dogged determination of teachers unions to maintain that status quo. Fauci and Walensky both made that clear before conveniently falling in line behind Biden’s talking points.
