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Anthony Fauci said Wednesday that vaccinating all teachers against Covid-19 before reopening schools is "non-workable," wading into an issue that has taken center stage for the Biden administration amid the ongoing pandemic. "If you are going to say that every single teacher needs to be vaccinated before you get back to school, I believe quite frankly that’s a non-workable situation," Fauci told "CBS This Morning." (Leonard, 2/17)

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that vaccinating teachers is not a requirement for reopening schools for in-person learning. “Neither the president nor the vice president believe that it is a requirement,” Psaki said at a briefing when asked whether teachers need to be vaccinated before they return to school. (Chalfant, 2/17)

Asked about the guidance Wednesday on NBC’s “Today” show, Vice President [Kamala] Harris declined to explicitly endorse it. “Teachers should be a priority,” she said several times. When pressed about teacher vaccinations in particular, she hedged, saying the CDC recommendations “are exactly that: recommendations.” Later, she added: “We’re all really clear. Teachers should be a priority. Teachers should be a priority. Teachers are critical to our children’s development, they should be able to teach at a safe place and be able to expand the minds of our children.” (Wootson Jr. and Meckler, 2/17)

President Joe Biden is in a political firestorm over how and when to get more schools open amid the coronavirus pandemic, with Republicans seizing on confusion surrounding Biden’s goal to reopen a majority of schools within his first 100 days to paint the president as beholden to teachers’ unions at the expense of American families. His administration in recent weeks has sent muddled and at times contradictory messages about Biden’s goal. On Tuesday night, the president said his 100-day goal was to have most elementary schools open five days a week, seeming to conflict with his own press secretary, who had said last week that schools would be considered “open” if they held in-person classes even one day a week. (Jaffe, 2/18)

You might get a vaccine shot in June. Or July. Hopefully by fall. And children are definitely returning to school soon, maybe. As for when things return to normal? Let's not talk about that yet. (Flaherty, 2/7)

In its opening days, the Biden administration set a new rule to allow Dr. Anthony Fauci to make more mainstream media appearances, after being effectively muzzled during the waning months of the Trump administration. “It's great to see Dr. Fauci on @Maddow — and anywhere else where he wants to speak his mind,” White House chief of staff Ron Klain tweeted on Jan. 22.The Biden administration is finding out the hard way, however, that the doctor does not really do White House talking points. On Wednesday, Fauci went decidedly off-message on the question of vaccines for school teachers, leading to a muddle of messaging. (Thompson, Meyer and Cancryn, 2/17)