The White House will await further guidance from the Centers for Disease Control before acting on President Joe Biden’s promise to reopen schools in the first 100 days of his presidency, Psaki said. But the CDC indicated in January that K-12 schools could safely reopen if students wore masks and practiced other mitigation efforts like social distancing. Schools “rarely reported” outbreaks of coronavirus, according to the study.

“One of the challenges we have is that the data is not great as it relates to schools that are open or not open, how hybrid learning is impacting kids,” Psaki said. “The data and the lack of data or effective data is part of the problem.”

The CDC is expected to release further guidance on how to safely reopen schools tomorrow.