Former FDA commissioner suggests Delta variant should force school safety review

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The Delta coronavirus variant is expected to change the way we approach COVID-19 mitigation efforts in schools, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb suggested during Sunday’s edition of Confront the nation on CBS.

While the risk is lower than in other situations, schools were not “inherently safe” even before Delta became the dominant variant in the United States. But now that the most transmissible strain is here, it’s a bad time to get rid of precautionary measures like masks, tests or pod students, Gottlieb said. If these are not in place, especially in heavily infected areas, “we can expect a different result” from previous waves, when outbreaks were generally suppressed in schools.

Additionally, Gottlieb said there was still a lot of unknowns about Delta, especially if it resulted in more serious illness. This is a concern because children under the age of 12, although generally much less susceptible to COVID-19, are not yet eligible for vaccination. “I can’t think of a company right now that would put 30 unvaccinated people in a confined space without a mask and keep them there all day,” Gottlieb said. “No company would do this responsibly and yet that’s what we’re going to do in some schools. So I think we need to go into the school year with a certain degree of humility and caution.”

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