New York City still plans to reopen its public schools in the fall, however, as the Delta variant continues to spread, educators are keeping remote learning on the back burner as a backup plan: if they need it.

     “We remain committed to in-person learning, but we’ve learned a lot over the past year about our ability as a system to pivot to remote if necessary,” Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter said in an interview yesterday with Mornings On 1. “And so we have that as an option for potential closures, potential classroom closures.”

     “Schools and school districts should develop plans to open in-person in the fall as safely as possible, and I recommend following guidance from the CDC and local health departments," said Howard Zucker, MD, the state’s health commissioner yesterday in a statement.

      City Hall also has insisted that children will return to in-person classrooms, and that remote learning will only be used in emergency situations, such as for classes in which children need to quarantine.

    Instead of relying on remote learning to protect schoolchildren from the Delta variant and potential other variants of COVID, Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi, MD, has emphasized the importance of vaccination, which can protect from multiple variants of the virus and add to the immunity that people who had COVID have from their antibodies, which may or may not still be present in people’s systems and certainly only provide immunity against the original strain of COVID from 2020.

    As part of an increased push to get the city’s 12 to 17-year-olds vaccinated before schools starts again, Porter and Dr. Chokshi also promoted New York City’s Vax to School initiative, which calls for eligible students to get vaccinated before the end of the summer.

     Approximately 60% of the city’s faculty members are vaccinated, said Porter, who expects that number she to grow in coming weeks, as the general number of vaccinations in the city has dramatically increased since the city issued mandates to city workers and health workers and has offered additional incentives, like $100 debit cards.

   

      “Over the past week,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said this morning, “we've seen over 80,000 first doses of the vaccine in New York City. Compare that to 57,000 for the first week in July, which is a 41% increase in such a brief period of time.

      “We also know that health providers in this city have more than doubled the number of doses they have ordered this week.”

    “The Delta variant, I think everyone's gotten the memo now: this is dangerous.

     “This is a whole new ball game. The impact across this country is really troubling.

     “Is anyone out there that wants to go back to 2020? Does anyone want to go back to restrictions? Does anyone want to go back to seeing a huge loss of life? If you don't want those things, take the Delta variant seriously and get vaccinated.”