Biden on schools reopening during COVID, vaccines

President Joe Biden said schools should be made “safe and secure” for students and teachers as states look to ramp up in-person learning.

But Biden speaking to reporters on Monday sidestepped a question about whether school districts should wait until teachers are vaccinated before requiring them to return to the classroom.

That issue is at the heart of a standoff between the Chicago Teachers Union and Mayor Lori Lightfoot. The Chicago Teachers Union has voted to defy an order to return to the classroom to begin in-person learning in one of the nation’s largest public school districts.

While negotiations are ongoing, school district officials say the teachers’ absence would amount to an illegal strike.

“We need testing for teachers as well as students, and we need the capacity, the capacity to know that the circumstance of the school is safe and secure for everyone,” said Biden, when asked about Chicago school district standoff.

Biden also increased his vaccination goal for his first 100 days in office. He believes the country can administer 1.5 million shots a day in the coming weeks and give 150 million vaccinations over the next 100 days.

Biden earlier set a goal of 100 million vaccines in his first 100 days.

The president also welcomed news that coronavirus deaths and cases per day in the U.S. dropped markedly over the past couple of weeks.

But the levels are still running at alarmingly high levels, and the effort to snuff out COVID-19 is becoming an ever more urgent race between the vaccine and the mutating virus. "The prediction is where we're going to see somewhere between a total of 600,000 and 660.000 deaths before we begin to turn the corner in a major way," Biden told reporters.

The virus has killed over 419,000 Americans and infected more than 25 million.

(Image Credit: AP)