President Joe Biden said that schools “should probably all be open” in the fall during an interview with “Today” that aired Friday.
Host Craig Melvin asked Biden during the interview about his stance on opening schools given the fact that the coronavirus vaccine is not yet available to children under 16. It is unlikely that the vaccine will be available to them by the fall.
“Based on science and the CDC, they should probably all be open,” the president said. “There’s not overwhelming evidence that there’s much of a transmission among these young people.” (RELATED: ‘We Are Breaking’: Parents Describe How Virtual Learning Has Traumatized Their Children)
“Based on the science and the CDC, they should probably all be open. There’s not overwhelming evidence that there is much of a transmission among young people,” Biden said of K-12 schools being open this fall for 5-day-a-week, in-person learning, even though kids not vaccinated. pic.twitter.com/zwFplhXZWe
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) April 30, 2021
Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said in November of 2020 that school is “one of the safest places” for children given data on coronavirus spread. Multiple studies have shown that children are less likely to get and transmit the virus than their adult counterparts.
First lady Jill Biden, a former teacher and doctorate in education, said that it’s up to each district to decide whether to reopen. “We’re following the science and what the CDC says,” she told Melvin. “Each district is different, and I think we have to listen to the experts and science, and then the districts have to decide.”
The first lady also praised Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan because of the funding it provides for education. She pointed out that children have fallen behind on learning during online school.
“I am concerned about the lost learning, but I do think we have an opportunity now to make things better,” she said. “That’s one of the reasons I was so excited about the American Rescue Plan, because it has so much money in there for education.”