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© LM Otero / AP
Amid concerns about the spread of COVID-19, Alma Odong wears a mask as she cleans a classroom at Wylie High School in Wylie, Texas. The cost of returning students to classrooms is proving a major barrier to the safe reopening of schools in the United States (AP Photo / LM Otero, File)
Leaders of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were blinded this week when President Donald Trump announced the agency could deploy teams to help schools reopen safely in the fall, said a senior CDC official at CNN.
“My administration is also ready to deploy CDC teams to support schools that open and schools that need help safely and to reopen safely,” Trump said Tuesday in a briefing.
The announcement left CDC officials scrambling this week to train staff so they can deploy if called upon, the senior official said.
Trump’s comments are the latest example of a communication breakdown between the public health agency and the White House.
At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the CDC task force was regularly briefed on assignments during presidential briefings, learning in real time with the public, a senior official said.
The CDC official added that the agency is expected to come up with a vaccination plan for schools in at least four states by October, although there is no realistic expectation that a vaccine will be ready by now. the.
Trump’s comments were made Thursday amid the White House release of eight new recommendations for American schools as they prepare to reopen.
Recommendations include ensuring that students and staff “understand the symptoms of COVID-19” and require that “all students, teachers and staff self-assess their health each morning before coming to school. “. The recommendations also encourage the use of masks, but do not require students, teachers or staff to wear them. They also “force students, teachers and staff to socially distance themselves from those at high risk,” but it is unclear how schools will go about it.
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