American Federation of Teachers Union President Randi Weingarten threatened school closures around the nation if students and teachers don’t mask up when they return for the fall semester.
“Masks stop transmission,” Weingarten claimed to CNN’s Jim Sciutto. “So universal masking is going to be very helpful to keep kids safe, to keep the unvaccinated safe, and to keep schools open.”
AFT’s @rweingarten says “universal masking” is needed to keep schools open:
“We see the Delta variant be very transmissible. And so that’s why what masks do is masks stop transmission. So universal masking is going to be very helpful to keep kids safe." pic.twitter.com/mjH0Fg9IPB
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) August 2, 2021
Weingarten latched onto the corporate media and CDC’s panic about the Delta variant to overlook the science and data about how low COVID-19 transmission is in kids and advocate for face coverings.
“The next question about will they stay open, that’s where we worry because when you have lots of kids particularly every child under 12 has not been vaccinated. We see the Delta variant being very transmissible,” Weingarten said.’
Weingarten conceded that a majority of vaccinated individuals who get the virus recover without hospitalization, but said that shouldn’t stop everyone from wearing a mask.
“School opening is really important. We need kids to be in school. We need everybody to be safe. We need to focus on accelerated learning and we need to focus on the emotional and social well-being of kids so that’s why I come down to where the APA and the CDC recommends which is…we have to wear them to keep us safe,” Weingarten said.
Just last week during an interview about the CDC’s masking flip-flop, Weingarten fell short of promising school reopenings to claim that teachers unions such as AFT that delayed a return to classrooms over the last year are “going to try.”
WATCH: Union Boss Randi Weingarten refuses to commit to reopening schools: "we're going to try" pic.twitter.com/K1Ax3Cv3Gs
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 28, 2021
While anti-science teachers unions push for masking, multiple GOP-led states are taking action to ensure that schools do not force children and teachers to wear a mask.
“The federal government has no right to tell parents that in order for their kids to attend school in-person, they must be forced to wear a mask all day, every day,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a statement. “Many Florida schoolchildren have suffered under forced masking policies, and it is prudent to protect the ability of parents to make decisions regarding the wearing of masks by their children.”
