White House chief of staff Ron Klain is speaking out about schools and the coronavirus pandemic.
During an interview on CNN’s “OutFront” with host Erin Burnett on Tuesday evening, Burnett noted the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said K-12 schools may be able to reopen safely.
She then asked why so many public schools are closed in places where private schools are open across the U.S.
Klain responded, “I’ll give you a word: money. That’s why the president of the United States sent a plan to Congress even before he took office to make the investments you need to make the schools safe.”
He later added, “President Biden has sent a plan to Congress that will make sure that the majority of our schools can be reopened within 100 days. We need Congress to pass that plan,” adding, “Sadly, it costs money.”
Burnett also noted the Chicago Teachers Union voted over the weekend to refuse in-person learning. She asked Klain why he believes “the teachers unions in many cases are overruling what the studies show.”
“I don’t think that teachers’ unions are overruling studies,” Klain responded.
He continued, “I think that what you’re seeing that schools haven’t made the investments to keep the students safe.”
Watch Klain’s interview below:
White House chief of staff Ron Klain says “out of 40 days” the Trump administration had “one day with a million” Covid-19 vaccinations. “Our goal is to hit a million 100 days out of 100. No country in the history of the world has ever done that …That’s a pretty ambitious goal.” pic.twitter.com/aMWFxT34lL
— Erin Burnett OutFront (@OutFrontCNN) January 27, 2021
“I mean, again, the Wisconsin study were classrooms of 12 on average. So that requires a lot more classrooms, a lot more teachers, or, you know, other kinds of arrangements to get them small, podding students very carefully,” Klain added.
The CDC study, which looked at 17 rural K-12 schools in Wisconsin, published on Tuesday, said that outbreaks were “rarely reported” and “reported student mask-wearing was high.” It noted that it seems the spread of COVID-19 was less when safety precautions are in place.
“Among 191 cases identified in students and staff members, only seven (3.7%) cases, all among students, were linked to in-school spread,” the study found.
The CDC writes:
“With masking requirements and student cohorting, transmission risk within schools appeared low, suggesting that schools might be able to safely open with appropriate mitigation efforts in place.”
Klain said during the CNN interview, “We need to do the things to open safely. Most of the teachers I talk to, they want to be back in the classroom. They just want to know that it’s safe and we as a country should make the investments to make it safe.”
Additionally, CDC researchers published a review in the Journal of the American Medical Association on Tuesday, writing, “As many schools have reopened for in-person instruction in some parts of the US as well as internationally, school-related cases of COVID-19 have been reported, but there has been little evidence that schools have contributed meaningfully to increased community transmission.”
A new study published by the CDC finds very few coronavirus cases in schools where precautions are in place @nickwattcnn reports pic.twitter.com/9cHheUM1YS
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) January 26, 2021
President Joe Biden has said that it is his goal to reopen schools safely within his first 100 days in office. He previously noted it will “take a lot of money, but we know how to do it.”