CDC won’t change school reopening guidelines

CDC won’t change school reopening guidelines

[NFA] The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director on Thursday said his agency will not revise its guidelines for reopening schools despite calls from U.S. President Donald Trump, instead his agency will provide 'additional reference documents' to aid communities.

This report produced by Yahaira Jacquez.

A day after Vice President Mike Pence said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would issue new guidelines for reopening schools... Pence: "We don’t want the guidance from CDC to be a reason why schools don’t open." ...the agency's director, Dr. Robert Redfieldon Thursday defended the guidelines and gave no details on what the CDC would be changing.

"Our guidelines are our guidelines," he told ABC's "Good Morning America" program, adding that his agency would provide additional reference documents to help schools 'but it's not a revision' of what his agency has recommended.

Redfield's comments come as Trump has ramped up a push to re-open schools in the fall, despite cases continuing to rise in the U.S. Trump: "We're very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools." He's even threatened to hold back federal funding, if classrooms don't have students in them at the end of summer.

But the U.S. Secretary of Education - Betsy DeVos - said that wouldn't be the case.

She told Fox News in an interview on Thursday quote "We're not suggesting pulling funding from education but instead allowing families ... (to) take that money and figure out where their kids can get educated if their schools are going to refuse to open." Though, it's unclear how the administration would redirect funding, which is directed by U.S. lawmakers.

Pelosi: "As a mother and a grandmother, everybody I know wants to open up the schools." While she acknowledged that many want schools open, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday said that children's safety came first.

Pelosi: "No, we don't want our children to take risk to go to school, we're supposed to mitigate for any damage, we're supposed to keep them safe." Pelosi's comments were directed at Secretary DeVos, who this week reportedly likened the risks of students and teachers returning to school to the risks astronauts take by going to space.