Keeping American schools closed for a year during the coronavirus pandemic was a “mistake”, the former head of a US public health authority has admitted for the first time.
Anthony Fauci, who led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases throughout the pandemic, said the decision to close schools was correct – but they should have reopened sooner.
The health chief was questioned about his role in the closures on Tuesday, after warnings that some children may never catch up with lost learning.
“The issue is shutting everything immediately, and we didn’t shut it down completely, but essentially major social distancing and even schools was the right thing,” Mr Fauci told CBS News.
“Keeping it for a year was not a good idea,” he added, admitting that the length of closures was “absolutely” a mistake.
Most schools in the US closed down in March 2020, as the initial wave of coronavirus spread across the country and scientists raced to develop a vaccine.
But there were arguments between public health officials, state politicians and the White House over the conditions for reopening.
The decision to reopen was taken by the governors of individual states, with some Republicans choosing to ignore strict guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease and Control Prevention (CDC) and bring children back earlier.
In July 2020, after the CDC issued guidance setting out criteria for schools to reopen, then-president Donald Trump said the conditions were “very tough and expensive” and that teachers had been asked to do “impractical things”.
He ordered new guidance to be produced, arguing repeatedly that schools should reopen in the autumn – one year before the first vaccine was approved in the US.
A second tranche of guidance in Feb 2021 set out new conditions that outlawed the full reopening of schools in almost all areas.
Swayed by teaching unions?
The measures were challenged by some Republicans, who accused the CDC of being influenced more by teaching unions than considering the educational outcomes for students.
Mr Fauci has previously refused to describe the CDC’s schools guidance as a mistake, arguing that the word would be “taken out of the context” by his critics.
Academic research has since shown that children in schools that remained largely closed throughout the pandemic are, on average, six months behind the pre-pandemic baseline in maths.
An analysis of test score data by researchers at Stanford and Harvard universities in January found that students had recovered around a third of lost learning, but some experts believe the missing time can never be fully replaced.
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