On Wednesday’s broadcast of NPR’s “Morning Edition,” White House Chief Medical Adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci stated that even vaccinated children should still wear masks in school due to the current level of viral spread, and he can’t give “an exact number” of what viral spread level would be low enough to remove masks, “but, hopefully, we will get there within a reasonable period of time.”
Fauci stated, [relevant remarks begin around 3:20] “It’s really going to depend on what the level of dynamics of viral spread is in the community. As you know, right now, even though we’re doing better and the numbers are coming down, we still have a weekly average of a daily 70,000 cases per day, and when you have that type of viral dynamic, even when you have kids vaccinated, you — certainly when you are in an indoor setting, you want to make sure you go the extra step to protect them. So, I can’t give you an exact number of what that would be in the dynamics of virus in the community, but, hopefully, we will get there within a reasonable period of time. You know, masks are for now, as we say, they’re not forever, and hopefully, we’ll get to a point where we can remove the masks in schools and in other places. But I don’t believe that that time is right now.”
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