Dr. Anthony Fauci, who served as a top adviser during the Covid pandemic under two presidential administrations, now says keeping schools closed for more than a year was a mistake.

In an interview on Tuesday, Dr. Fauci admitted that while the initial decision to close schools was justified, the prolonged closures were not the best course of action.

“Keeping it for a year was not a good idea,” the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said on “CBS Mornings.”

“So, that was a mistake in retrospect?” co-host Tony Dokoupil asked. “We will not repeat it?”

“Absolutely, yeah,” Dr. Fauci said.

Dr. Fauci, 83, has consistently supported the decision to move children out of traditional classrooms and into remote learning environments during the pandemic. His longtime stance has been evident in both his congressional testimonies and public statements.

In the summer of 2020, as schools across the country debated reopening plans, Dr. Fauci found himself at odds with President Trump. Dr. Fauci advocated for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, which recommended school closures in communities with high transmission rates.

Despite the widespread closures, some schools opted to reopen in September 2020. According to data from Brown University’s National Covid-19 School Response Data Dashboard, fewer than 1 percent of these schools reported Covid cases among students and teachers.

In January 2021, a CDC study showed “little evidence that schools have contributed meaningfully to increased community transmission.” Yet powerful teachers’ unions pushed the Biden administration to keep classrooms closed, which they did until the next school year.