Former HHS Secretary says national coronavirus testing strategy needed to reopen schools

As the fall semester approaches, the decision of whether to bring millions of students and staff back to school has fallen largely on local school districts and university administrators.

But in order to prepare for the eventuality of coronavirus surges on campus, and avoid shuttering campus gates once more, a former administration official says that the Trump White House needs to implement a national COVID-19 testing strategy in order to safely reopen and return to "normal."

"A national approach to testing is the way that we will get to the place where the testing capacity and the testing speed that we need is there," Former Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary and current President of American University Sylvia Burwell said in an interview with "Face the Nation" moderator Margaret Brennan on Wednesday.

"Right now, we are doing it in region by region, sector by sector. And an overarching approach is something that would be very helpful to getting to the place where you can do things like bring the schools up, elementary and secondary and your universities, and it will be the backbone on which we can build the rest of bringing the parts of the economy back more fully," she explained.

Her comments come just as major universities, including the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, have been forced to shut down after coronavirus cases emerged among students and staff just one week into the fall semester.

It's a reality Burwell knows all too well after initially planning for a "hybrid" learning environment of online and in-person classes combined with reduced on-campus living. Just one month later, Burwell made the decision, in consultation with a team of epidemiologists and local officials including DC Mayor Murial Bowser, to move all courses to the virtual space, and halt the traditional trappings of a fall semester on the college campus.