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Anthony Fauci

Back to school amid another COVID surge. What's a parent to do? Fauci says adults need to step up.

If you’ve been to any big-box store recently, you know what time of year it is.

Back to school.

Again this year, those words are creating anxiety, as COVID-19 cases – fueled by the aggressive delta variant – spike to levels not seen since teachers were presiding over virtual classrooms in the dead of winter.

New cases are averaging more than 60,000 a day, and about 2,000 people a week in this country are dying from COVID. In this latest COVID surge, our country’s fourth, we're seeing sick children in those figures: Nearly 4.2 million kids have tested positive for the virus, about 72,000 just in the last week. That's almost double the number from the previous week.

And while children generally still fare better than adults who catch COVID, their hospitalization rates are up, with pediatric units across the country filling up. Kids do, sadly, die of COVID – 358 through July 28. Doctors in multiple states have said they are seeing kids who are more sick than in the past –including some who land in the ICU with tubes in their throats.

That is not reassuring as we're stocking up on No. 2 pencils and preparing to send our children, many of whom are too young to be vaccinated, into crowded quarters.

Unions fight vaccination mandates

Especially not when transmission rates are at frighteningly high levels in nearly every pocket of the country. And when some states have banned mask mandates, meaning that as school officials prepare to re-open doors, they can't require that faces be covered – even though that is a scientifically proven way to reduce transmission. And certainly not when two of the nation’s largest teacher’s unions are hesitating at a vaccine requirement, even when most of those dying – about 99% – are unvaccinated. 

I asked Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, whether parents should feel safe about back to school, given the circumstances. He told me on Friday, during a meeting with the USA TODAY Editorial Board, that he thinks our children should be in school, that another year of remote learning would be harmful.

But he says the adults in their lives need to step up.

"Anybody who is anywhere near a child in what should be the protected environment of a school, if they are eligible to be vaccinated they should be vaccinated," he said. 

With the the highly contagious delta variant continuing to spread, it's important for everyone, vaccinated and unvaccinated, to wear masks in public indoor settings, he said. Masks and vaccines will slow the spread. 

"Getting the people around the kids vaccinated isn't all that difficult to me," he said. "It's common sense. But getting everybody to wear a mask, you're going to get pushback from that, hence the anti-mask mandates that you're seeing in certain states."

Students wear masks while attending a summer session at Zachary Taylor Elementary School on Tuesday, July 27, 2021. Superintendent Dr. Marty Pollio is recommending universal masking for students and staff when JCPS resumes classes in August for the 2021-2022 school year.

Anti-mask mandates don't make sense

You know what else isn't easy? Virtual school. Bored, scared school-age kids who worried they weren't learning correctly (or enough). Who missed their friends. Who hated – still hate – masks but will keep wearing them to be able to have something close to normal.

Time for some truth:We are failing at COVID at exactly the wrong time.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, talks with USA TODAY Opinion Editor Kristen DelGuzzi during a remote meeting  with the USA TODAY Editorial Board.

In Arkansas, where cases are surging among kids, Gov. Asa Hutchinson wants to let schools require masks, so he is trying to amend a mask ban he signed into law this year, saying, "in hindsight, I wish that had not become law."

In Arizona, where Gov. Doug Ducey has signed a statewide ban on mask mandates, some schools and districts are openly flouting it and requiring their students to cover their faces on campus.

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis has threatened to withhold state money from schools that require masks. 

Dr. Fauci finds these positions perplexing. 

"I cannot understand how one can say I'm going to mandate that you don't allow a person to mandate a mask – in other words the anti-mandate mandate," Fauci said. "It just doesn't make any sense to me why you would want to not protect the children.

"Somebody really needs to explain that to me, because I don't get that."

Me neither.

Kristen DelGuzzi is opinion editor of USA TODAY. Follow her on Twitter: @kristendel

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