The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will not release new guidance documents on school reopening this week, contrary to recent comments from officials in the Trump administration.
A CDC spokesperson told NPR in an exclusive that new documents would instead be published sometime before the end of the month. The delay comes amid fierce nationwide debate about schools reopening and how it can be done safely.
Vice President Mike Pence announced July 8 that the agency would release new documents this week that would better guide schools in their efforts to safely reopen classrooms shuttered by the COVID-19 pandemic—which is still engulfing much of the US. That announcement came just hours after President Trump blasted the CDC’s current recommendations in a series of tweets, calling them “very tough & expensive.” He also threatened to cut funding from schools that do not open before the November election.
“Well, the president said today, we just don’t want the guidance to be too tough,” Pence said at a press briefing held shortly after the tweets. “And that’s the reason why, next week, CDC is going to be issuing a new set of tools: five different documents that will be giving even more clarity on the guidance going forward.”
The next day, CDC Director Robert Redfield tried to clarify that the new documents would not provide new or revised guidelines.
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“Our guidelines are our guidelines,” Redfield said in an interview with ABC’s Good Morning America. “But we are going to provide additional reference documents to aid basically communities that are trying to open K-through-12s… It's not a revision of the guidelines; it's just to provide additional information to help schools be able to use the guidance that we put forward."
Existing guidance documents provide recommendations for reducing disease transmission risk and physical distancing in schools, such as keeping desks six feet apart, wearing masks, staggering arrival and dismissal times, and having children eat their lunches at their desks rather than in a cafeteria. They also note that schools may consider closing for extended periods of time if there is “substantial community transmission” of COVID-19 in the area.Redfield described the current guidelines as a “portfolio” of recommendations with a “spectrum” of strategies to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19 in schools, emphasizing that they were never meant to be “prescriptive." The upcoming documents, he said, would help each school district tailor their own strategies, potentially enabling them to pick and choose which individual measures to follow.
Speaking in Louisiana on Tuesday, July 14, Pence said again that he expected Redfield and the CDC would release the new documents “later this week." Pence described them as “additional guidance for parents, for the operation of facilities.”
“But to be very clear,” Pence went on, “we don’t want CDC guidance to be a reason why people don’t reopen their schools... we’re going to respect whatever decisions are made.”
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