Rochelle Walensky, who was nominated as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaks after U.S. President-elect Joe Biden started his team dealing with the Covid-19 on December 8 at The Queen in Wilmington, Delaware. Pandemic commissioned, 2020.
Jim Watson | AFP | Getty Images
Teachers don’t have to get Covid-19 vaccinations before schools can safely reopen, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday.
“There is mounting data to suggest schools can be reopened safely and that reopening safely does not mean teachers need to be vaccinated,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told reporters during a White House press conference on Covid-19.
“Teacher vaccinations are not a requirement for schools to reopen safely,” she added.
The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted for “key frontline workers”, including teachers, to have their turn to receive a Covid-19 vaccine after prioritizing healthcare workers and residents of long-term care facilities were. However, it can take a while for most teachers to get their recordings as US officials work to speed up the pace of vaccinations.
Even so, school systems in the US have been under pressure to reopen after switching to distance learning last year due to the coronavirus pandemic that infected more than 26.4 million Americans and killed at least 447,077 people in just over a year had.
Some parents had to stay home to watch their children instead of going to work. Meanwhile, teachers and other faculties have raised concerns about return to school that could potentially endanger their health.
A study by the CDC released late last month found little evidence of the virus spreading to schools in the US and abroad when precautions were taken, such as wearing masks, social distancing, and ventilation rooms.
The Biden government has released a bailout plan for Covid that includes $ 170 billion to reopen schools and universities. Some of the money would be used to scale tests. The government has stated that testing is a “critical” strategy for controlling the spread of the virus, but added testing is still not widely used and the US is still not effectively using the tests it has.
Walensky previously said schools should be the first to open and the last to close in the pandemic.
Jeff Zients, President Joe Biden’s Covid-19 tsar, said Wednesday that Biden was “very clear” that he would like schools to “reopen and stay open”.
“That means every school has the equipment and resources to open safely,” he said during the press conference, calling on Congress to “do its part” by approving Biden’s Covid rescue plan. “Not just private schools or schools in affluent areas, but all schools.”