Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day three hundred
Speaker 1: and seventeen since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Today's
Speaker 1: main story. President Joe Biden has made it his mission
Speaker 1: to reopen most schools in the US in his first
Speaker 1: one days on the job. But teachers, parents and local
Speaker 1: policymakers aren't all on the same page about how to
Speaker 1: do that safely. But first, here's what happened in virus
Speaker 1: News today. New York City will delay opening vaccination megacytes
Speaker 1: at Yankee Stadium and City Field because of vaccine shortages.
Speaker 1: The city will miss its goal of one million doses
Speaker 1: by the end of January. The city received about one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand fewer doses last week than it had expected
Speaker 1: from the US government. Mayor build A. Blasio said the
Speaker 1: city is equipped to vaccinate five hundred thousand people a
Speaker 1: week if it gets a supply increase. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: it's rescheduling appointments. US Infectious Disease Chief Anthony Faucci said
Speaker 1: he's worried about a push to delay administering the second
Speaker 1: dose of COVID nineteen vaccines at a world economic form
Speaker 1: panel today, Faucci said it's best to give shots in
Speaker 1: line with the schedules outlined in clinical trials. Fiser recommends
Speaker 1: a second dose of its vaccine after three weeks, and
Speaker 1: Moderna has a four week interval. Faucci was concerned about
Speaker 1: the efficacy of the vaccine if those intervals were stretched,
Speaker 1: and said that delaying the second shot could also give
Speaker 1: rise to more mutated forms of the virus. Finally, the
Speaker 1: UK reported the lowest number of new cases since the
Speaker 1: middle of December. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said his government
Speaker 1: would start considering which measures could be relaxed at the
Speaker 1: beginning of next month. The indicators hint at an impending
Speaker 1: peak in the number of deaths being reported each day,
Speaker 1: which last week hit a record. There are still thousands
Speaker 1: of people on mechanical ventilation and UK hospitals are still
Speaker 1: under significant strain. And now for today's main story. President
Speaker 1: Joe Biden has vowed to reopen most u S schools
Speaker 1: in his first one hundred days, but that could ignite
Speaker 1: clashes among teachers, their unions, and parents over how to
Speaker 1: do that safely. Petitions and potential teacher strikes loon even
Speaker 1: while parents watch children struggle online. I spoke to Nick Carrillo,
Speaker 1: who reports that the issue has been one of the
Speaker 1: toughest pandemic challenges for local policymakers. Across the US. School
Speaker 1: systems look vastly different right now. Some are entirely online
Speaker 1: and others are back in the classroom. President Biden has
Speaker 1: announced his intention to reopen the majority of US schools
Speaker 1: within his first one hundred days. But how is his
Speaker 1: administration planning to achieve this? Yeah, it's a great question,
Speaker 1: and I think it's one that's on every teacher's mind. Um,
Speaker 1: this has been a really complicated issue for policymakers and
Speaker 1: education advocates, and it's been very different district to district,
Speaker 1: county to county. Biden has basically promised to roll out
Speaker 1: federal guidelines to help schools kind of answer the question,
Speaker 1: you know, how quickly can we reopen, when should we
Speaker 1: be thinking about reopening, and how safe is it? This
Speaker 1: in practice is going to look like help from the
Speaker 1: federal government in terms of testing resources, It's going to
Speaker 1: look like best practices in terms of social distancing for
Speaker 1: the schools, what triggers they should really be using to
Speaker 1: kind of decide when to reopen and send teachers or
Speaker 1: students back into schools. And they've also asked FEMA to
Speaker 1: release funding to help teachers and schools pay for UH
Speaker 1: needed equipment to make it safe to return, like PPE
Speaker 1: or testing. And so, what have been some of the
Speaker 1: reactions say by teachers to this announcement. You know, it's
Speaker 1: a good question. I would say that the national teachers
Speaker 1: Unions are broadly in support of what Biden rolled out
Speaker 1: last week. These were executive orders signed towards the second
Speaker 1: half of last week, and for the most part, they
Speaker 1: were pretty vague. I mean, they haven't quite yet explained
Speaker 1: what that guidance will be. It was really just a
Speaker 1: promise that the guidance is coming and that there's going
Speaker 1: to be funds made available to the schools. So there's
Speaker 1: nothing too controversial and what we've heard so far from
Speaker 1: the Biden administration, but he has pledged to work towards
Speaker 1: reopening a majority of US schools within his first one
Speaker 1: hundred days, and depending on how quickly that happens. And
Speaker 1: you know, what the COVID situation looks like in various places,
Speaker 1: it does set the stage for something that could become
Speaker 1: potentially complicated we've seen in Chicago teachers unions are pretty
Speaker 1: close to striking UM as a result of being asked
Speaker 1: to return to schools and what teachers in their unions
Speaker 1: have deemed potentially unsafe. New York has had complications going
Speaker 1: back in practice, is a really tricky issue for the
Speaker 1: Biden andrustration to nail down. Let's get into that a
Speaker 1: little bit more specifically. I mean, what really are the
Speaker 1: fears that say the teachers unions have identified about whether
Speaker 1: or not the classroom is safe to return to. The
Speaker 1: big fear is that teachers are going to be asked
Speaker 1: to return to schools and it's going to be unsafe.
Speaker 1: There is a lot of research about this, and for
Speaker 1: the most part, we haven't really seen really dangerous situations
Speaker 1: in classrooms or you know, strong outbreaks linked to classrooms.
Speaker 1: Of a large majority of cases in schools are usually
Speaker 1: acquired by teachers outside the classroom, and most students are
Speaker 1: less likely to contract severe COVID symptoms. But that being said,
Speaker 1: the vaccine rollout has been complicated and a lot of
Speaker 1: teachers are being asked to go back to school as
Speaker 1: we speak and may not even be able to get
Speaker 1: the first shot UM. It varies state by state kind
Speaker 1: of how high and the pecking order teachers are about
Speaker 1: when they're going to get their vaccine. And if you're
Speaker 1: an elderly teacher or someone who has a pre existing
Speaker 1: condition or some sort of co morbidity, it makes sense
Speaker 1: that they would be concerned about, you know, even a
Speaker 1: small risk that a teacher might contract the virus. And
Speaker 1: what has been the response to accusations that essentially schools
Speaker 1: have not provided the necessary say testing or tracing that
Speaker 1: simply the extent to which schools um are potential transmission
Speaker 1: sites just is unknown, and we don't really have the
Speaker 1: information needed to assess whether or not we can reopen
Speaker 1: schools safely exactly. This is a really big point that
Speaker 1: the Biden administration wants to address, is that schools without
Speaker 1: really comprehensive contact tracing and testing systems in place aren't
Speaker 1: able to say definitively what the situation with coronavirus is
Speaker 1: inside their building. So in New York they've been testing
Speaker 1: quite religiously. I think last week they did over three
Speaker 1: thousand tests and they didn't find any single case of coronavirus.
Speaker 1: But not every state or district has that kind of capacity.
Speaker 1: In place right now to do so many tests so frequently,
Speaker 1: and it's really not a sure answer as to whether
Speaker 1: or not the schools are safe without that now. As
Speaker 1: part of the announcement regarding his plans for schools, President
Speaker 1: Biden has also, of course, recently announced his pick for
Speaker 1: Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona. What we know about his
Speaker 1: views regarding either remote or in person learning and the
Speaker 1: reopening of schools. It was speculated that Miguel Cardona was
Speaker 1: picked partly because of the role he played in Connecticut's reopening.
Speaker 1: We don't know that for sure, but in that role,
Speaker 1: he was the state's Commissioner of Education before becoming the
Speaker 1: nominee for Secretary of Education, and he was a strong
Speaker 1: advocate for school reopening along with the state's governor, but
Speaker 1: didn't go so far as to mandate Connecticut schools to reopen. Instead,
Speaker 1: they allowed the districts a bit of flexibility to decide
Speaker 1: for themselves, and of course some did, some didn't. I
Speaker 1: think New Haven Schools just opened last week for the
Speaker 1: first time since the beginning of the pandemic. It's complicated.
Speaker 1: I think he did get a little bit of pushback
Speaker 1: from certain districts or teachers who were made to go back.
Speaker 1: But he has done this once before as at a
Speaker 1: state level. And do we know anything about the say,
Speaker 1: prioritization of teachers in the vaccine rollout. Is there a
Speaker 1: chance that more teachers will qualify for being say, front
Speaker 1: of the line to receive vaccines. There are states that
Speaker 1: are really pushing teachers quite high on the list in
Speaker 1: order to get them vaccinated as quickly as possible, in
Speaker 1: large part because a lot of state leaders see school
Speaker 1: real opening has a huge hinge to the recovery of
Speaker 1: their economies. Allowing students to get back into schools with
Speaker 1: some regularity would free up a lot of parents who
Speaker 1: otherwise aren't able to go into their work or have
Speaker 1: complicated work schedules. So it does vary state by state.
Speaker 1: In New York, I think teachers are in Group one B,
Speaker 1: which is alongside some essential grocery workers and people over
Speaker 1: the age of sixty five, and they are actively being
Speaker 1: inoculated right now. But it's difficult, you know. I've talked
Speaker 1: to a couple of teachers who have have their appointments
Speaker 1: canceled or are unable to get a slot. I spoke
Speaker 1: to one teacher in New Jersey last week who is
Speaker 1: being mandated to go back into two in person teaching
Speaker 1: and hasn't been able to get a shot. So it's
Speaker 1: not perfect. Teachers are getting vaccinated, I think, as quickly
Speaker 1: as states can vaccinate them, but it's just a huge
Speaker 1: lotistical challenge for these districts and teachers to get everyone
Speaker 1: vaccinated as quickly as possible. Now, the opening of schools
Speaker 1: within his first one days is a very ambitious plan.
Speaker 1: Many think that we are not going to be seeing
Speaker 1: a normal school system or a school year really until
Speaker 1: the start of the next school year in the fall.
Speaker 1: I mean, how do you respond to to those who
Speaker 1: think that this is really quite a distance off. I
Speaker 1: guess it kind of depends what we think normal is.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's nobody really in education that is not
Speaker 1: eager to get students back in schools in some capacity.
Speaker 1: You know, Virtual learning has really been quite difficult for
Speaker 1: a lot of students, especially UM students of color and
Speaker 1: low income students who are you know, more likely to
Speaker 1: be UM without digital devices or without strong internet access.
Speaker 1: There have just been complications left and right. And I
Speaker 1: think there's about a third of students in the US
Speaker 1: who since the beginning of the pandemic, have never set
Speaker 1: foot in a classroom, and right now, I think about
Speaker 1: fifty pcent maybe a little bit less, are currently doing
Speaker 1: virtual school. So Biden's goal to get a majority of
Speaker 1: schools in person, we're technically not that far off from it.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are a lot of places in the
Speaker 1: country where students are doing in person or some sort
Speaker 1: of hybrid situation. But presumably if he's talking about opening
Speaker 1: a majority of those that have yet to reopen, that's
Speaker 1: really tough. And there are going to be some schools
Speaker 1: with strong social distancing protocols or um maybe a B schedules.
Speaker 1: It's going to be a mishmash of policies and what
Speaker 1: these reopenings look like, and for sure that it's going
Speaker 1: to look very different from you know, what we think
Speaker 1: of as normal in person schooling pre pandemic for quite
Speaker 1: some time. That was Nick Corrello, and that's it for
Speaker 1: our show today. For coverage of the outbreak from one
Speaker 1: and twenty bureaus around the world, visit Bloomberg dot com
Speaker 1: slash coronavirus and if you like the show, please leave
Speaker 1: us a review at a rating on Apple Podcasts or
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Speaker 1: our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily edition is produced by
Speaker 1: Tophor foreheads Magnus Henrickson and me Laura Carlson. Today's main
Speaker 1: story was reported by Nick Corrello. Original music by Leo Sedrin.
Speaker 1: Our editors are Rick Shine and Francesco Levi. Francesco Levi
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks for listening.