The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Sunday defended telling educators last year that social distancing in schools of three feet was “quite safe,” while her agency in new reopening guidance says six feet of distancing is recommended. “Over the summer, we were at much less disease, and our guidance is a bit more flexible in terms of the distancing if you are at low rates of transmission, those rates that we were seeing over the summer,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky said. “The other thing I want to just highlight is that a lot’s changed since July. We know, we have a lot more science. We have over 60 references accompanying our school guidance. Many, if not most of those references have been experiences that have happened in the fall, both here in the United States and in Europe, as well as new data on variants, …