Health Officials Outline Plans For How School Can Resume This Fall
Coronavirus: Latest News | Community Resources | COVID-19 Info | Download Our New App | CBSN Minnesota
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- On Tuesday, top COVID-19 experts testified in front of a U.S. Senate committee with some advice on what school may look like if and when it returns this fall.
Schools have to start planning for a wide variety of scenarios, and yet it's hard to know where we'll be here in Minnesota, or as a nation, in the next couple of months.
"It really will depend on the dynamics of the outbreak and the location of where the school is. One of the things we're emphasizing is take a look at where you are in the reopening of America again," Dr. Anthony Fauci said.
Minnesota is in phase three of reopening, which allows schools to open in a hybrid model, given guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Minnesota Department of Health.
RELATED: University Of Minnesota To Require Face Masks On Campus Starting July 1
However, those guidelines aren't clear just yet. The CDC will release new, comprehensive recommendations soon.
Minnesota's superintendents and chancellors will then build their plans off of that, which Fauci says should include testing, prevention, and a strategy on how to isolate students should need be.
As for how this aligns with possible treatment timelines, the health leaders who testified are optimistic that treatments like Remdesivir, the only drug shown to speed the recovery process, will be available by this fall.
Vaccines are a different story. The Food and Drug Administration used the words "aspirationally hopeful" that doses will be available early next year.
