Chicago Department of Public Health Director Dr. Allison Arwady said Wednesday that her department is working to assuage concerns about COVID-19 safety in schools – with teachers having voted to go to remote learning and classes having been…
CHICAGO (CBS) — Chicago Department of Public Health Director Dr. Allison Arwady said Wednesday that her department is working to assuage concerns about COVID-19 safety in schools – with teachers having voted to go to remote learning and classes having been canceled for the day as a result. Arwady and other city officials have insisted the data say schools are safe, but numbers also show how rapidly COVID-19 has been spreading with the Omicron variant now dominant. CBS 2’s Irika Sargent asked Arwady how her department is working to ease teachers’ concerns about being in the classroom and make them feel safer. “So we are definitely in a big surge of COVID – no question about it. What we’ve seen, though – over and over again in data – is that where you’ve got the mitigation measures in place and you’re taking COVID seriously, the spread is lower,” Arwady said. “And I can tell you my team has been working very hard all day to support CPS in terms of trying to build some additional testing capacity if that will help ease people’s concerns – and there’s testing going on even while the schools are not open. There’s vaccination going on. And the work to really get us back is absolutely my top priority.” On Tuesday, Dr. Arwady pushed back against concerns that in-person classes were likely to put children’s lives in jeopardy – as some parents have expressed concerns they might.
