CDC says guidelines for reopening schools are 'not requirements' after Trump calls them 'impractical'

https://news.yahoo.com/cdc-softens-guidelines-for-reopening-schools-after-trump-calls-them-impractical-and-expensive-181630718.html

Dylan Stableford and Alexander Nazaryan
,Yahoo News•July 8, 2020


After President Trump on Tuesday lashed out at what he called “impractical” and “expensive” guidelines for reopening schools published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the agency’s director emphasized that they were meant as recommendations, not mandatory standards, and “should not be used as a rationale to keep schools closed.”

“Remember it’s guidance, it’s not requirements,” CDC Director Robert Redfield said during a briefing by the White House coronavirus task force. “And its purpose is to facilitate the reopening and keeping open the schools in this country.”

His comments came hours after Trump criticized the CDC’s guidelines and threatened to withhold federal funds from school districts that don’t reopen fully and on schedule for in-person classes, and a day after a White House conference on school reopenings at which first lady Melania Trump made a rare public statement.

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