Read on Twitter
1/Yesterday CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said: "Vaccination of teachers is not a prerequisite for safe reopening of schools." https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1256&v=DnolD4MDEnQ&feature=youtu.be. I do have several questions, though, that I'm hoping the CDC will soon answer with its new guidance.
2/How is the CDC defining "safe"? How safe? Safe for whom? In what contexts?
3/Has the CDC done a systematic analysis of data/research on school reopening and COVID spread? (Notably, a widely cited recent opinion piece by CDC researchers on school reopening only included a small handful of scientific citations https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2775875)
4/Why has the CDC apparently emphasized the results of a Wisconsin study of 17 rural schools over another state-wide study? The results were somewhat conflicting — how does the CDC reconcile them? https://www.chalkbeat.org/2021/2/2/22262837/cdc-studies-school-reopening-wisconsin-covid-safety
5/Does the CDC have any estimates of what share of schools currently open for in-person instruction are vs. are not following recommended mitigation? If not, are there any plans to try to collect that data?
6/Does the CDC plan to correct one of its publications which misrepresented another study on schools and COVID spread (according to the authors of that study)? https://www.chalkbeat.org/2021/2/2/22262837/cdc-studies-school-reopening-wisconsin-covid-safety
7/If schools are *already* safe to reopen, what is the scientific basis for prioritizing school staff for vaccination? Would vaccinating school staff make schools safer?
8/Does the CDC have any hypotheses for why school staff, at least according to some data, have higher COVID rates than the surrounding community? Does the CDC plan to examine this phenomenon more closely? https://www.chalkbeat.org/2021/1/12/22227990/covid-teachers-school-reopening
9/How do claims about safety intersect with the new variant (which the CDC has indicated could be dominant in the US by March)? Are we likely to find ourselves in a position of swiftly closing schools again like much of Europe? https://www.wsj.com/articles/europes-schools-are-closing-again-on-concerns-they-spread-covid-19-11610805601
10/10 Some of these questions are pointed, but to be clear they are intended earnestly — and I'm not trying to say that the CDC director's conclusions are wrong. But I do think some of these issues need to be addressed thoroughly and directly. /
