President Joe Biden on Friday will reportedly announce biweekly coronavirus tests for school children amid school districts shutting down over omicron variant fears.
Despite Biden’s promise in 2020 to shut down the virus, schools around the nation are closing early for Christmas break. Biden perhaps worries his unfulfilled promise will be further delayed by school districts not returning to order after the scheduled break.
US President Joe Biden(C) and First Lady Jill Biden (R) visit the classroom of fifth-grade teacher Cindy Bertamini, at Yorktown Elementary School in Yorktown, Virginia on May 3, 2021 (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images).
As a result, Biden has reportedly rolled out a new scheme to likely pacify teachers’ unions’ strangle on the Department of Education.
The plan is reportedly called “test-to-stay.”
“Instead of mandatory quarantines for students identified as close contacts of a Covid-positive peer, those students could remain in school if they test negative for the virus at least twice during the week after an exposure,” NBC News reported.
The New York City public school district has already closed about 875 classrooms before districts typically break for Christmas. Many of the children are being forced to learn at home by teaching themselves via e-learning.
Former acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Richard Besser, told NBC News that children should be protected at all costs despite the death and hospitalization rate among children remaining extremely low.
“It’s clear that the best place for children is in-school learning, and if it can be done safely for a child who may have been exposed to Covid, then we need to do that,” Besser said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Americans on Thursday that the next weeks and months could see a spike in hospitalizations and deaths due to coronavirus variants.
White House Chief Medical Adviser on Covid-19 Dr. Anthony Fauci listens as US President Joe Biden (out of frame) speaks about the 50 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine shot administered in the US during an event commemorating the milestone in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, February 25, 2021 (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images).
“Besides the toll of suffering and death which will inevitably go up if in fact we have that convergence in the winter months of flu and omicron and delta, we could get our hospital systems overwhelmed,” Fauci said.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø.
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