WASHINGTON (AP) – How do you define success when it comes to reopening schools in the pandemic? President Joe Biden and his assistants are struggling to find an answer to the question.
Tuesday night at his forum in City Hall, Biden denies that his government ever thought that one day of classroom instruction a week would be enough to declare victory in its promise to open most schools to younger children by spring. This is doubtful, given the conflicting report his press secretary gave last week.
Also during the event, Biden said at one point that no vaccines had been deployed when he took office. It was a one-time slip. At other times in his remarks, he said millions of doses were administered during the Trump administration and more accurately characterized the conditions he inherited.
From the CNN event in Milwaukee:
SCHOOL
PRAY, asked about the White House’s claims that at least one day a week will provide classroom instruction on its reopening of the promise: ‘No, that’s not true. This is what was reported. That’s not true. This was a communication error. ”
THE FACTS: This is a piece. A mere mistake by the White House could have been corrected by the White House days ago.
The argument that four days of homeschooling and one in the classroom can be successful has provoked much criticism. The White House has therefore changed to the 100-day target and is aiming higher.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said a week ago that Biden’s goal was to keep the majority of schools – more than 50% – open by day 100 of his presidency. And that means a little teaching in classrooms. So, at least one day a week. Hopefully it’s more. ”
A day later she said that the minimum once a week ‘is the benchmark where we want most schools to be across the country, which they are not at this time, and we want to build from there. ”
A day later, she evades a question about classroom instruction once a week, except to admit that parents should not just be content with that. Psaki stressed the president’s desire to fully restore instruction in the classroom, but did not tie it up to 100 days or any timetable.
Biden has already relied on a related front. He promised in December that most schools would reopen during his first 100 days, but said last month that the goal only applies to schools that teach through the eighth grade. At that point, Psaki concluded last week, saying, “I’m not going to set a new goal today.”
Biden told his audience in City Hall that his goal is five days of classroom instruction and “I think we’ll be close to that by the end of the first 100 days.” On Wednesday, Psaki said that class training one day a week ‘was our floor, it was not our ceiling’, when she brought it up last week.
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VACCINES
PRAY, about the need for more people to administer COVID-19 vaccines: ‘It’s one thing to have the vaccine, which we did not have when we took office, but a vaccination. How do you get the vaccine into someone’s arm? ”
THE FACTS: This is obviously wrong. Two vaccines were developed that were distributed and went into the arms of U.S. people before Biden took office – just not enough.
Americans began vaccinating in mid-December, the week after Britain delivered the first shots.
Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, jumped on the bandwagon in an interview with Newsmax on Wednesday. ‘I saw him say there was no vaccine when he came into office. “And yet he got a chance before he came into office,” Trump said. ‘And we announced it in early November. … And we gave millions of shots and millions of doses. So he did not speak the truth, or that he was gone spiritually. One or the other. ”
Before his slip, Biden said there were 50 million doses available when he became president, but ‘there was figuratively and literally nothing in the fridge, meaning there was no backup stock in those early weeks.
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PANDEMIC LIGHTING
PRAYER calls for an “overwhelming consensus … among economists left, right and center (that) we can not spend too much” in pandemic relief.
THE FACTS: Not entirely accurate.
There is a broad consensus that massive spending is needed to counteract the economic pain and to meet the public health needs of the pandemic – and that there are more risks of becoming too small than too large. But with regard to Biden’s specific plan, there are prominent dissidents and strong disagreement about how high to go.
Some economists look at the U.S. gross domestic product and see that the country is already close to its pre-pandemic levels, which is why they are advocating for a smaller amount of relief than in Biden’s $ 1.9 billion package. Others look at the levels of hunger, housing instability and unemployment, and see the need to go as big as Biden suggested.
Biden’s proposal received confirmation from Kevin Hassett, who was Donald Trump’s top economist in the White House. But Larry Summers, who was Barack Obama’s top economist and Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary, warned that it could risk inflationary pressures not seen in a generation. Although opinion on the package crosses political lines, it crosses both ways, for and against.
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Associated Press authors Josh Boak and Christopher Rugaber contributed to this report.
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NOTE FROM THE EDITOR – A Look At The Truth Of Claims By Political Figures.
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