| Coming tomorrow: Long-awaited CDC guidelines on reopening schools The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is expected to unveil guidelines on Friday for reopening schools amid the coronavirus pandemic as White House officials have offered shifting answers on their goals for returning children to in-person learning. "There is no debate over whether to open schools here. There's a debate over how. And if it were as simple as open all the schools, they would be open now," Andy Slavitt, a senior adviser to the White House on the pandemic response, said on MSNBC early Thursday. "Tomorrow, the CDC is going to roll out their operating plan to give school districts, local communities, the guidance they need to do that," Slavitt added. Why it matters: The White House has been in the spotlight on the schools issue after offering sometimes mixed messages, and has been accused of siding with overly cautious teacher's unions and ignoring science that says schools can be open safely. The administration is facing scrutiny for saying earlier this week that Biden's goal of having schools open within his first 100 days office meant more than 50 percent of schools were holding at least one day of in-person learning each week by the end of that time frame. That claim was mostly walked back on Thursday, when White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Bien's commitment is to ensure schools are open five days a week. Check this space tomorrow, where we'll have a full breakdown of the guidelines! Read more here. Now that Biden is in office, will calls for more rapid at-home tests be realized? President Biden is raising hopes that he will sharply scale up rapid at-home COVID-19 tests to help control the pandemic, but advocates say far more needs to be done beyond the administration's early moves. A vocal group of health experts has been pushing for months to ramp up production of cheap and simple tests that people can use multiple times a week and get results in a matter of minutes, helping the country safely return to work and school until vaccines are widely available. Moves so far: - Using the Defense Production Act to ramp up the supply of 61 million rapid tests by the end of the summer.
- Awarding $230 million to the testmaker Ellume for more tests, though many will come in the later part of the year.
But it needs to be faster: Michael Mina, a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who has been leading the push for rapid tests, said even simpler, cheaper tests are needed to scale up faster and in much higher numbers, to as many as 20 million per day. He praised the administration for last week's announcements, while adding: "Both fall quite short of anything that I've been discussing. But I believe it means that they are willing to try." Read more here. White House: 'No decisions' made on domestic travel restrictions The White House has not made any final decisions on imposing domestic travel restrictions, press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday. The comment from the White House came after a report said the administration was considering implementing one around Florida due to coronavirus cases. "Well, I've seen those reports. We are always considering what steps are necessary to keep the American people safe, but we are not currently in the process of — no decisions have been made around additional public health measures that would delay or would change, I should say, domestic travel considerations," Psaki said at a press briefing. The Miami Herald reported Wednesday that the administration was weighing domestic travel restrictions that would target states that have been severely impacted by coronavirus variants, including Florida and California. The Biden administration has imposed international travel restrictions to try and stem the spread of the virus, but domestic travel restrictions would mark a new step taken by the government that would, most likely, face backlash. Read more here. Another reason to wear a mask and be careful in DC: UK, South African virus strains detected in nation's capital Two separate variants of the coronavirus, first detected in the United Kingdom and South Africa, have been detected in three Washington, D.C. residents, the city health department said Thursday. Director of D.C. Health LaQuandra Nesbitt noted that not every positive test has been sequenced, only a sample, so there are likely more cases of the variants present. "This is not surprising to D.C. Health," Nesbitt said, noting that cases have been detected in Maryland and Virginia in recent weeks. Nesbitt said additional details are not yet known, including whether the people infected have been informed that they have the variant. Still, nobody's behavior should change. Keep wearing a mask, keep physical distance, and continue avoiding large gatherings, especially indoors. The two variants are more contagious, but experts have expressed confidence that available vaccines will be effective at least against B-117, the variant first found in the U.K. The strain first found in South Africa could be more problematic, as drugmakers may need to develop booster shots or revamp current vaccination formulas. Read more here. | 
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