Weingarten: Updated CDC School Guidelines ‘Being Driven by Space Concerns, Not By Safety Concerns’

On Friday’s “CNN Newsroom,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten reacted to the CDC revising its guidelines to say that schools only need three feet of distancing, not six by saying that “this is being driven by space concerns, not by safety concerns.”

Weingarten said, “So, we’re reserving judgment, Kate. Because we have to see the studies. The study that was out — so, the study that was out in the last few days from Massachusetts, Dr. Osterholm basically said was not ready for primetime. And I’ve been listening all day to the experts you’ve had on, and Dr. Wen obviously will talk about this too, that the issue is that this is being driven by space concerns, not by safety concerns. And when that happens, we have to see what it means. And frankly, in so many of the places that I represent, meaning urban places that have just now recently re-opened, because they don’t have great ventilation, the de-densification of classrooms was really important if you had a lot of bodies in a room. And so, the CDC is saying that all these other mitigation factors have to stay there, including good ventilation, which 40% of the schools don’t have, including mask-wearing, which Texas and Florida and others are not doing. And so, the teachers are being vaccinated. That’s really good. But I worry with the new variants what’s going to happen in terms of transmissibility with kids and with their families. So, we’ve got to read the studies. We’ve got to see what it really means. And I just hope this is not a rush to put in twice as many desks in a place where we’re really starting to get things re-opened.”

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