The nation’s top disease expert recommends some ways schools can safeguard kids.
The highly contagious Delta variant that’s driving the new Covid-19 surge has left many families wondering whether it’s safe to send their young kids back to school for in-person learning.
Once again, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending that everyone — including even vaccinated adults — wear masks in schools. But Dr. Fauci recently told Katie that he hopes a Covid-19 vaccine will be available for children under 12 before the end of the year.
“I hope it doesn’t take quite a while. I hope we do it within the next several months, I hope before the end of the year, but we don’t know that — that’s an FDA decision,” he said. “We are doing studies to get information that would be able to validate a decision to do that. We’re collecting those data. We’ll get more and more of it as we approach the fall. But ultimately, that will be a regulatory decision by the FDA, together with an advisory condition from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices that advises the CDC.”
Until then, Dr. Fauci said with the right precautions in place, children will benefit from in-person learning this year.
“It is a very important primary goal in the fall to get the children in class and not virtual because we are well aware of the deleterious effects on children: their development, their mental health, their educational development,” he told Katie in a video interview. “Therefore, we’ve got to make sure they’re safe in school.”
Dr. Fauci said there are a few ways to safeguard children but first: “Get the people around the children who are eligible to be vaccinated, get them vaccinated — teachers, school staff, and anybody else.” For those who can’t get the vaccine, such as young kids, he advised that “everyone should be masked, whether you’re vaccinated or not,” adding that it’s already “a very clear recommendation by the CDC.” In addition to masks, the CDC is also suggesting that students remain 3 feet apart and schools regularly screen students and staff for symptoms.
Dr. Fauci’s comments come ahead of yet another uncertain school year. We’re nearly 18 months into the pandemic, and there’s still no real consensus on how to keep school staff and students safe. Though the CDC has issued clear federal guidance, it’s not enforceable leaving school districts scrambling to create a patchwork of protections. Out of the nation’s 200 largest school districts, roughly 69 are mandating masks, according to Dennis Roche, co-founder of Burbio, which aggregates school data.
Just as many kids return to the classroom, there has been a “substantial increase” in Covid-19 hospitalizations among children who can’t get vaccinated yet. There were nearly 94,000 new cases among children last week alone, with some of the worst numbers reported in Louisiana and Florida. Some experts are now urging the FDA to authorize vaccines for 5- to 11-year-olds.
Back-to-school plans have also been complicated by the fact that many education officials remain at odds with Republican politicians over mask mandates — the most well-known example being in Broward County, Florida. Home to one of the nation’s largest school districts, school officials there announced they were abandoning plans to require masks after Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order allowing parents or guardians to choose whether their child wears a mask in schools, and granted the state power to withhold funding from schools requiring masks.
“I think there needs to be depoliticizing always when you’re in a public health issue. I’ve been saying that for a year and a half,” Dr. Fauci told us. “Sometimes it has gotten me to be the brunt of people’s criticism because there is politicization usually by people who are trying to, for example, say we shouldn’t be doing the things that are public-health measures and I think that’s really unfortunate.”
But he added that he’s encouraged by Republican leaders ramping up efforts to promote vaccinations among supporters, naming Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, Louisiana congressman Steve Scalise, and even DeSantis as prime examples. Despite nationwide vaccine education campaigns, there’s still a significant political divide between the vaccinated: 86% of Democrats and 51% of Republicans say they have gotten at least one shot.
“What I’m heartened by is that we are seeing Republican leaders who are saying, ‘Get vaccinated,’” he told us. “I mean, Governor Asa Hutchinson is beating the bushes in Arkansas doing that, Steve Scalise has really been promoting vaccines — even governor DeSantis in Florida has been saying that, despite the fact that he’s saying that he doesn’t want there to be mask mandates. He is encouraging vaccination, which is good.”
