The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that schools are at a low risk of spreading the coronavirus.
“Accumulating data suggests school settings do not result in rapid spread of COVID-19 when mitigation measures are followed,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said during a press briefing. The mitigation measures include wearing masks, staying 6 feet apart, and proper ventilation.
She also noted that the CDC recommends that K-12 schools should be the last to close after all other mitigation measures have been employed.
“They should also be the first to reopen when they can do so safely,” Walensky said.
Many teachers unions have resisted returning to the classroom, at times demanding that teachers be vaccinated first.
For example, in Fairfax, Virginia, the Fairfax Education Association has insisted on “staff & student vaccinations” before returning to the classroom.
In Chicago, teachers were supposed to return to work on Monday, but less than 14% of elementary teachers showed up, as the Chicago Teachers Union continued to direct its members to stay home. Due to the low turnout, Chicago Public Schools canceled classes on Thursday.
President Biden has proposed a plan to get all children back in school within 100 days. But Anthony Fauci, Biden’s chief medical adviser and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has suggested that might not happen.
“[Biden] believes that the [K-8] schools need to reopen in the next 100 days,” Fauci said Thursday at a town hall hosted by the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association. “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.”
