Thursday, July 09, 2020

CDC sticks to its guns on guidelines for school reopenings

Trump doesn't like the draft guidelines and tweeted that he'd be meeting with the CDC (followed by three, count 'em, three exclamation points). Pence said revised guidelines would be out next week. Betsy DeVos emphasized how important it was for all school kids to be in class five days a week this fall. And, against all this political posturing unsupported by not one lick of science, CDC Director Robert Redfield said today that [1] the guidelines are what they are; [2] CDC is planning to provide additional information on how best to implement the guidelines; and [3] best of all, each school district will need to decide for itself when and how to open up based upon conditions on the ground. CDC hasn't exactly covered itself in glory during this pandemic, but this is a welcome show of spine by a federal official who could be fired by Trump in a nonce. Good work, Dr. Redfield.