Vice President Kamala Harris repeatedly dodged questions about the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines on school reopenings under Biden’s government in an interview Wednesday morning.
Speaking on NBC’s “Today” show, Harris was constantly pushing the CDC’s guidelines released last week on their staged reopening of schools, particularly on the point that teachers don’t need to be vaccinated.
When asked if it was a mistake that tutoring would keep 90 percent of schools closed for personal learning, Harris would simply say it was the administration’s priority to get the doors of the schools open.
“Schools have opened in the past four weeks, more schools are opening every week,” vice president told host Savannah Guthrie. “And it’s because we’re complementing what needs to be done around the vaccinations coming in states, but also because we’re seeing progress, people wearing masks when they’re vaccinated, when they’re socially distant, we’re seeing progress there.”
“But we all want the schools to reopen, Savannah, all of us with kids in our lives. They want to go back to school, we want them to go back to school, to teach teachers. “
Printed further, Harris argued that the guidelines should not be followed as if they were legally binding.
“What the CDC, what they’ve recommended, is just that: recommendations on how to safely reopen when closed, how to stay open when open.
“Some recommendations include what, again, should be done around social distancing, washing hands, wearing masks. But the point is, we all want our kids to get back to school as quickly and safely as possible, ”said Harris.
Harris faced setbacks from Guthrie over shifting reports about schools from the administration, from changing timelines to concerns about the number of days per week that students might return.
The VP defended the administration in response, saying, “Our goal is for as many K-8 schools to reopen within the first 100 days. Our goal is for it to be five days a week, so we have to work on reaching that goal. But our goal is the parent’s goal, I mean here’s the thing, Savannah, I don’t need to tell you, the problem here isn’t just about statistics, it’s about our kids, it’s about their parents. The point is that our children miss essential, critical days in their educational development every day. “
Harris admitted that children have suffered harm that misses out on their formative years in the classroom, but remained vague about how the administration would provide for mitigation.
“We know, we’ve been working on this issue for years, around the fact that at the end of third grade, if a child isn’t at third grade reading level, they literally drop out. So every day in a child’s life is very long, which is why we must collectively do everything in our power to reopen our schools as quickly and safely as possible. “
Asked about the caution of some teachers to return to work without taking a COVID vaccine, which some teacher unions have taken advantage of to refuse to return to personal learning, Harris seemed to undermine the CDC’s statement, urging that teachers should be a priority for vaccination.
“Teachers should be a priority [to receive the vaccine] along with other frontline workers, ”Harris said twice before sharing an anecdote about a favorite teacher of hers.
“And we’re going to make one,” she added, declining to say whether teachers should feel safe returning to personal instruction, as the CDC has advised.
Under pressure from Guthrie when unvaccinated teachers should feel safe returning to class, Harris replied, “Well, I think we need to decide if we can take safe measures. That is why it is so important that we achieve the American bailout. The American rescue plan proposed by the President and I is a plan to reopen our schools. “
When Guthrie asked Harris to simply address the problem that teachers are wary of exposure when they are not yet vaccinated, the vice president reiterated her claim that the administration believes that teachers “should be a priority.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said last weekend that it would be “optimal” but not essential for all teachers to be vaccinated before returning to class, echoing a similar verdict by Biden’s new CDC director.
A friend of the teachers’ unions, Biden has refrained from using his influence to quell dissent from groups in some of the country’s largest cities.
Pressed Tuesday night at his CNN town hall about school closures, Biden said press secretary Jen Psaki was wrong when she said his plan would see only half of the kids back in class for just one day a week.
The commander in chief said he wanted a full reopening of the school by the end of his first 100 days in office, predicting there would even be districts where they would institute a full summer school semester.
“That’s not true. There was a flaw in the communication,” Biden told CNN anchor Anderson Cooper when asked about the scaled-back goal of one day a week.
Biden said he would be “close to” his goal of reopening the majority of primary schools by the end of April.
“We’ve had a significant percentage of them who could be open,” he said.
“I suspect they’ll probably push to open all summer to continue like it’s another semester,” he continued. “I think many of them will do five days a week, the goal is five days a week.”