Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Sunday that widespread social distancing and wearing masks would eliminate the need to resume closings due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“If we wear our masks we can avoid more stops, but if we don’t, that will be the consequence,” Azar said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“The most important thing we have to do right now is for each of us to act responsibly as individuals,” he added. “We know this works if we only do it as individuals.”
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Robert Redfield made similar comments in mid-July, saying, “If we could get everyone to wear a mask right now, I really think in the next four, six or Eight weeks, we could bring this epidemic under control. “
CBS’s Margaret Brennan also questioned Azar about the Trump administration’s push for students to return to school in person in the fall, asking what thresholds, if any, would force schools to close.
Brennan noted the White House Coronavirus Task Force “yellow zone” criteria, which apply to a locality with a 5-10 percent positivity rate, and asked if a school with a similar rate should close.
“That is an epidemiological early warning signal, which has not been defined as a threshold for reopening of any kind,” Azar responded, saying, “We do not believe there are uniform thresholds for reopening of school.”
“Each community will have to make the determination on the circumstances for the reopening,” added Azar. “The presumption should be that we take our children to school and figure out how to make that happen.”
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