Revised CDC guidance emphasizes reopening schools and downplays health risks

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a call to reopen schools in a package of new “resources and tools” that opened with a statement that sounded more like a political speech than a scientific document.

The New York Times reports that the CDC information listed numerous benefits of children of being in school and downplayed  potential health risks.

The revised guidelines come two weeks after President Trump criticized its earlier recommendations on school reopenings as “very tough and expensive.”

[MORE: Read the revised CDC guidance]

“Reopening schools creates opportunity to invest in the education, well-being, and future of one of America’s greatest assets — our children — while taking every precaution to protect students, teachers, staff and all their families,” the new opening statement said.

The package of materials began with the opening statement, titled “The Importance of Reopening America’s Schools This Fall,” and repeatedly described children as being at low risk for being infected by or transmitting the coronavirus, even though the science on both aspects is far from settled.

The new statement is a stark departure from the 69-page document, obtained by The New York Times earlier this month, marked “For Internal Use Only,” which was intended for federal public health response teams to have as they are deployed to hot spots around the country.

That document classified as “highest risk” the full reopening of schools, and its suggestions for mitigating the risk of school reopenings would be expensive and difficult for many districts, like broad testing of students and faculty and contact tracing to find people exposed to an infected student or teacher.