Los Angeles & San Diego to Restart School Online Only in Fall.
TAPPER: In our national lead, this afternoon, California's two biggest school systems, Los Angeles County and San Diego, both announced that students will not physically return to class when school starts next month. Instead, classes will be online only. Both districts called federal guidelines on re-opening vague and contradictory. The Trump administration insists that all U.S. schools should reopen in the fall, but the administration will not spell out exactly how to do so safely. And, in fact, has undermined the CDC guidelines on the matter. Let's bring in Dr. Richard Besser, former acting CDC director. Dr. Besser, thanks for joining us. What's your reaction to the Los Angeles and San Diego school districts' decision not to bring students physically back to class when the school starts -- when school starts in August?</s>DR. RICHARD BESSER, FORMER CDC DIRECTOR: Jake, as you know, I'm a pediatrician and a parent. And the place for students is in school learning. But you have to do it in a way that's safe. And one of the things that's clear is if you have widespread transmission of COVID in the community, there's absolutely no way to safely open the schools. It has to be a decision that schools are doing in conjunction with local public health, with teachers, with staff, groups with parents, so that it can be done safely.</s>TAPPER: My colleague Dana Bash tried to get specifics on what federal school re-opening plan there is when she interviewed Education Secretary Betsy DeVos yesterday. Take a look.</s>DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Do you have a plan for what --</s>BETSY DEVOS, EDUCATION SECRETARY: The plan --</s>BASH: -- for what schools should do?</s>DEVOS: Schools should do what's right on the ground at that time for their students and for their situation. There is no one uniform approach that we can take -- or should take nationwide.</s>TAPPER: What's your reaction to that, Dr. Besser?</s>BESSER: Well, you know, I think part of that is on target in that you need to respond to the situation that's happening locally. So in a place with widespread disease, you can't think about opening the schools. But in a place that has the pandemic under control where numbers have been going down, where you're slowly opening the economy, then the other half isn't right. You have to have the same approach. And that means configuring schools in ways that are going to be safer -- safer for children. That means fewer children in the classroom, checking air flow so that air flow is turning over more so the kids aren't exposed to whatever's in the air as much, putting up barriers. You know, the upside of this pandemic, Jake, is that most children who get this will do fine. Not all, but most will do fine. But that's not true for staff.