Fauci supports plan to reopen RI schools

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on a teleconference with Gov. Gina M. Raimondo Thursday lauded how Rhode Island as a state has approached the COVID-19 pandemic while discussing the state’s efforts to reopen public schools this fall, saying that the state would be “unequivocally” starting from a positive place given its low percent of COVID-19 cases.

Fauci joined Raimondo on a Zoom teleconference Thursday to discuss the health impacts of in-person learning and the health precautions schools should be taking to keep students and staff as safe as possible. Streamed on the governor’s Facebook page, the teleconference was watched by more than 6,500 live viewers.

“People need to understand what the default position is, what we try to do, that we try, to the best of our ability, to get the children back to school for the reasons that I’m sure you’ve heard of, mainly the deleterious effects on children who are kept out of school, both psychologically and, in some counties and in some states, children rely on school to be able to get a good, healthy breakfast and lunch,” Fauci said. “Also, the secondary downstream ripple effects on families, where families have to disrupt their work schedule if children are kept out of school.”

That said, there is a “big however” associated with returning children to in-person learning, and Fauci said that primary consideration should “always be the safety, the health, and the welfare” of students, educators, and their families. He explained there’s been some confusion across the country in recent weeks because of the diverse status of each state’s COVID-19 positive cases and because of that, each state has been designated one of three colors green, which has less than percent positivity or fewer than cases per , yellow, between and percent positivity or to cases per , or red, which represents greater

than 10 percent positivity or more than 100 positives per 100,000.

But while the “level of anxiety about going back to school obviously varies on where you are,” Rhode Island happens to be “well into the green,” Fauci said, with a percent positive rate between 2 and 3 percent and fewer than 10 cases per 100,000.

“If you have in place the ability to identify, isolate, contact trace, to get testing, then you should be able to open up safely and clearly,” Fauci said. “Now there will always be cases, the question is how do you prevent those blips of cases from becoming something that obviates the whole program? … But you’re starting from a very good place.”

Acknowledging high anxiety among teachers and parents about getting kids back to school, Raimondo pushed back the target date for reopening all public districts by two weeks, from Aug. 31 to Sept. 14. During her weekly briefing on COVID-19 Wednesday, Raimondo said school districts are making good progress in preparing for the start of school, but many are concerned they need a little more time to make sure they have adequate operational controls in place to open safely amid the pandemic.

Raimondo asked Fauci if the state was doing the right thing, or doing enough, given the anxiety among parents and teachers and the fear that they’ve shown considering what has been seen in states such as Texas and Georgia. Fauci responded: “in my impression, you are.”

“It’s important for two things: are you starting from a good place? The answer is unequivocally yes. Secondly, you have in place understanding of what you need to do to mitigate, to the best possible, the likelihood of there being infection, and you’ve mentioned several of the things that you have in place. So step number two, you’re OK. And third, do you have the capability of responding when you do get the inevitable situation of someone being positive? And the answer is yes,” Fauci said.

But while some towns may be clear to safely reopen schools, Raimondo has said that there are communities such as Pawtucket and Central Falls that have yet to meet the metrics to return to full in-person learning and may have to start with a hybrid model.

“Depending upon where you were, and I think to say all schools must close or all schools must open is not the adequate and correct approach,” Fauci said. “You’ve got to be flexible … when you’re in a red zone, you’re going to have teachers that are very anxious, you’re going to have parents that are very anxious, so the decision may be made for you without your recommendation because if most of the teachers don’t show, you’re going to do virtual anyway. So my feeling would be if you’re in a green zone, it’s likely with a couple of simple things in place, you can do what Rhode Island is trying to do. If you’re in a yellow zone, you need to be a little careful, a little bit more … and if you’re in a red zone, you really better be very careful, you may make a decision to hold off for a bit to see how things roll out.”

But he said the downside or “ripple effects” to continued distance learning could become even more apparent this fall and beyond.

“Psychologically, separating children from the normal interactions of their peers is number one. Number two, the ripple effect on the parents who may have to interrupt work, which has the next ripple effect on having a negative effect on the economy,” Fauci said. “So what we’re trying to do is safely and prudently open up the country, get the economy back to a healthy level, get rid of a lot of the unemployment. When you have parents who need go to work and need to stay home to watch the children, that’s another effect.”

“It’s a sad reality of our society, but when the children are at home, there is an increase in child abuse, the frayed tempers of people feeling claustrophobic together, that absolutely happens,” Fauci added.

As for teachers who may be anxious, Raimondo asked what Fauci would say to the educators who are in need of some “confidence and comfort that it’s going to be safe to go back to teaching.”

“You happen to be in a state, in a city, in a county in which the infection rate is so low that the chances of your getting infected is very, very low. You super-impose upon that wearing a mask, doing the things that the governor and I have been speaking about … it’s never completely risk-free, but for goodness sake, we are living, all of us, in a historic pandemic, we’ve never had anything like this for the last 102 years,” Fauci responded.

“You can’t interrupt your life totally, indefinitely. You’ve got to try to safely get back to normal,” he continued. “And the way to safely get back to normal is to make sure your state and your city and your county is green, which it is, and make sure it stays green.”