Amidst the Coronavirus pandemic, one of the major questions that policy-makers have had to deal with around the United States is how to safely reopen schools. As issues swirl, the White House has apparently blocked officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from testifying to a particular House committee about safe school reopenings. The House Education and Labor Committee — whose purview obviously includes schools — had sought the testimony of CDC Director Robert Redfield or another official from the agency, but this week, Chairman Bobby Scott (D-Va.) revealed that the White House had informed them that they’d not be allowing CDC officials to testify.
Some rationales that the Trump administration has previously used for blocking testimony include that House committee hearings are supposedly an undue distraction from the main work of responding to the Coronavirus. Yet, the Trump administration, at least many of its political appointees, are hardly even doing any kind of effective main work to respond to the Coronavirus at this point, and they’re thwarting the public health officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci who are trying to bring people’s attention back to the science at-hand. Recently, some officials have been trying to discredit Fauci, passing around brazen misrepresentations of his remarks as supposed evidence for their claims.
Meanwhile, after the White House blocked the CDC testimony, Rep. Scott commented:
‘It is alarming that the Trump administration is preventing the CDC from appearing before the committee at a time when its expertise and guidance is so critical to the health and safety of students, parents, and educators. This lack of transparency does a great disservice to the many communities across the country facing difficult decisions about reopening schools this fall.’
Previously, Trump himself has actually complained about the CDC’s response to the pandemic. Specifically, he characterized CDC guidelines for safe school reopening as supposedly too restrictive, turning the issue into some kind of political football instead of an actual question of whether or not those in and around schools will be adequately protected.
Redfield, for his part, has offered tempered commentary in the past. Recently, he commented:
‘I think really people underestimate the public health consequences of having the schools closed on the kids. I’m confident we can open these schools safely, work in partnership with the local jurisdictions.’
Some jurisdictions, however, like those in major population centers across California; in Richmond, Virginia; and elsewhere, have already been rolling out plans to have their schools completely or almost completely online.
It’s a fact that the Coronavirus can spread on school campuses — and for starters, although Coronavirus cases have hit younger populations less severely, there have still been hospitalizations and even occasional deaths among school-age children. Furthermore, kids obviously aren’t the only ones on school campuses — all of the teachers and staff on-site could also be susceptible to serious illnesses if they were to be infected with the Coronavirus. There’s been some promising signs recently in the development of a vaccine, but it’s definitely not ready for any kind of widespread usage yet.
