(Reuters) – U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidelines for U.S. schools to reopen Friday, recommending universal masking and physical distance as the key COVID-19 mitigation strategies to get children back into the classroom quickly get.
The guidelines here, which also emphasize the need for cleaning facilities, personal hygiene and contact tracing, are intended to give school districts a roadmap to bring the country’s 55 million public schoolchildren back to classrooms without hitting COVID-19 outbreaks. cause.
“We believe that the strategies we have put forward will be limited to the proliferation of schools if followed,” Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, told reporters, noting that the CDC does not order schools to reopen .
The agency also said reopening of schools should not be subject to teachers’ access to COVID-19 vaccines.
President Joe Biden has promised that he will reopen most K-8 schools within 100 days of taking office on January 20th. He praised the CDC’s leadership on Friday, highlighting the problems arising from the continued closure of schools, including children’s mental health struggles and the exodus of parents from the workforce.
“We have sacrificed so much over the past year. But science tells us that if we support children, educators and communities with the resources they need, we can bring our children back to school safely in more parts of the country sooner, ‘Biden said in a statement.
Only 44% of U.S. school districts have been fully self-taught since December and 31% have been operating remotely, according to the Center for Reinventing Public Education, which surveyed 477 of the country’s nearly 13,000 school districts. Other districts use a hybrid learning model, where students attend some school days in person and others virtually.
School reopening has caused labor disputes between teachers ‘unions, who fear for their members’ safety, and school districts in major U.S. cities. In Chicago, the teachers’ union and district agreed this week on a security plan after months of negotiations that included threats of a strike.
The American Federation of Teachers, which has about 1.7 million members, on Friday praised the CDC’s leadership for relying on ‘facts and evidence’.
‘We call on the CDC to remain flexible as more data comes to light. The guidance is instructive for the moment, but this disease is not static, “AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a statement.
FLEXIBLE APPROACH
The phased mitigation strategy of the CDC is adaptable depending on the level of COVID-19 transmission in the school community.
In areas where the COVID-19-positive test rate is below 5% and there have been fewer than nine new cases per 100,000 in the past seven days, schools can fully reopen and relax social distance measures as long as masks are worn, Walensky said. In higher distribution areas, the agency insists on a 1.83-meter separation in classrooms and weekly testing of students, teachers and staff.
Primary school students should learn at least part-time, even in areas with high transmission, the guidance says.
Recent studies have shown that personal learning is not associated with increased community transfer, especially in primary schools.
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy on Friday criticized the reopening of the guidelines Friday as insufficient to ensure students return to classrooms immediately.
‘Families and students deserve better. “They need ironclad assurance that their children can get back into the classroom environment that provides the best education model,” McCarthy said in a statement.
U.S. House Spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, said Friday that House committees were working to help Biden’s $ 1.9 billion U.S. bailout plan, which includes a $ 130 billion investment, follow schools to comply with CDC protocols. to follow, to help schools apply the CDC’s guidelines.
“Without strong support from Congress, our schools cannot afford to take the scientific safety measures,” Pelosi said in a statement.
Reporting by Gabriella Borter in Boca Raton, Fla., Jarrett Renshaw in Philadelphia and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington; Edited by Colleen Jenkins, David Gregorio and Matthew Lewis