Pence Says CDC Guidelines Will Be Changed After President Trump Tweets Disapproval

After President Donald Trump tweeted about school reopening guidelines being too “tough & expensive,” Vice President Mike Pence said on Wednesday that school openings will be reexamined and receive new guidance by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The president said today we just don’t want the guidance to be too tough,” Pence said at a press conference. “That's the reason why, next week, CDC is going to be issuing a new set of tools — five different documents that will be giving even more clarity on the guidance going forward.”

Pence noted that CDC guidelines should not supplant the judgment of local officials.

In recent weeks, Trump has made reopening schools in the fall a top priority. In addition to this latest complaint, he has also threatened to withhold funding to schools that choose not to resume in-person classes.

At the same conference, Pence appeared to downplay the President’s threat, suggesting that schools will be rewarded in the next stimulus bill for reopening rather than punished for not reopening.

“And as we work with Congress on the next round of state support, we're going to be looking for ways to give states a strong incentive and encouragement to get kids back to school,” Pence explained.

While the Trump administration pushes for students to return to classrooms in the fall, many parents do not seem to be onboard. According to a survey conducted by Outschool, an online teaching platform, roughly 61% of the 1,100 parents polled said that they would not be comfortable sending their children to school without a vaccine available.

Additionally, the survey found that 46% of respondents said that their child’s school had not released a plan to safely bring students back in the fall and 40% said that the pandemic closures had made them more likely to consider homeschooling.