bring in adrienne broaddus. again, kids aren t going to today, but if everything goes well, tomorrow. reporter: exactly. so not four days of missed school, john, five. sanjay was just talking about those high-quality masks. let s get right to this agreement. that s one thing teachers of the union here in chicago wanted. they wanted to make sure students were able to wear kn-95 masks. what we know about this agreement, the city has agreed to provide kn-95 masks to students and staff. it also has agreed to add some enhanced pllayers to weekly cov testing. now, there will be a threshold. there are metrics in place that will trigger individual schools to switch to remote learning if covid cases, the transmission is high, based on cdc guidelines. however, the president of the
finally a deal. reporter: john, finally some relief for parents who can plan the rest of their week without interruption. you used the word bitter, and i would say that s a polite way to describe it. because in the very end here, there were some personal attacks and some nasty words used. finally, a deal has been made. teachers will return to schools today, and students will return to the classroom tomorrow. let s take a look at some of the things that were agreed on. we know this all stems from teachers or members of the chicago teachers union feeling schools were unsafe. now, this agreement that has been reached includes ramped up testing in school. the mayor said last night during a news conference they ve added some extra layers. they ll conduct weekly testing. there will also be kn-95 masks distributed to staff and students. now, we heard from members of the teachers union who said they
kn-95 or n-95 masks. we talked about this on your program for a long time now, saying, why not just recommend those masks, especially given the contagiousness of this virus and the new variants. in fact, i asked dr. walensky and dr. fauci about this at a town hall, maybe close to a year ago. listen to what they said. why not recommend it, especially with these more transmissible variants? yeah, it is a really good question and one we get a lot. i have spent a reasonable amount of time in an n-95 mask. they re hard to tolerate all day, every day. in fact, when you really think about how well people will wear them, i worry that if we suggest or require that people wear n-95s, they won t we them all the time. they re very hard to breathe in when you wear them properly. they re hard to tolerate when you wear them long periods of time. you know, that surprised me, again, a little bit. a lot of people have been wearing these masks now over the past year.
here, because maybe the deaths aren t as high as with past variants, but the systemic issues as to how the country can operate with so many people getting sick, that s what they re trying to address at the moment, a shifting message over the course of the last several weeks. making it very clear this can be dealt with, tools are there, people just need to pay attention and use those tools. at the briefing, fairmount was talking about masks. was there a decision there? there is not going to be a mandatory use of n-95 masks, kn-95 masks, however they have a strong desire to make those masks more available. the primary message from walensky was any mask is better than no mask, but kn-95 and n-95
blasted mayor lori lightfoot. the mayor has been relentless but she is being relentlessly stupid. she is relentlessly refusing to seek accommodation and we are trying to find a way to get people back to school. carley: during negotiations, teachers staging a caravan as part of their resistance to work in person, shutting down traffic around city hall. well, a live look at capitol hill where in just hours cdc director rochelle walensky and dr. anthony fauci will face lawmakers at a hearing on president biden s handling of the pandemic. senators are expected to grill biden s covid advisers on the administration s most recent guidance on prioritizing testing and treatment of nonwhites. the cdc is now expected to urge the use of n-95 and kn 95 masks due to mounting omicron cases. the white house announcing today that the u.s. will give another