Dr. Fauci tells California CEOs reopening schools should be ’the default position’

To the extent possible, the focus nationwide should be on reopening schools, White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci told Silicon Valley business leaders Friday, while also warning that infection rates for the coronavirus were worsening significantly in 40 states.

“The default position we feel should be, as best as possible, to get the children back to school, as opposed to making the default, when you have infections, keep them out of school,” he said during the Silicon Valley Leadership Group’s Annual Forum, this year held on Zoom.

Fauci participated on a panel with Dr. Sarah Cody, Santa Clara County’s director or public health, who said her goal has been to “keep the rates of community transmission as low as possible” by restricting business reopenings to enable children to return to schools; this week, the county sued a San Jose church that defied orders to stop indoor services. After hearing her conditions — mask wearing and social distancing for older students, and separate, non-mingling small cohorts of younger students — Fauci said, “The approach that Dr. Cody just outlined makes absolutely perfect sense to me as where you are right now in California.”

Cody called on businesses in Silicon Valley to partner with and “adopt” schools to help solve school ventilation and other reopening challenges and to work with the county to improve public health data, including reporting of Covid-19 infection rates.