Children should stay in school whenever possible, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told attendees of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health forum.

Data do not support the widespread transmission of the virus in schools, Fauci said, and the U.S. should try to keep children in schools “as best we possibly can” even as the country sees a spike in coronavirus cases rivaling numbers that previously saw the nation shut down.

Children do not appear to be transmitting the virus to adults in school settings, Fauci said, adding that the risk to teachers and administrators being in schools does not appear to be “any greater than the risk they would face” by being in the general community.