White House adviser and president-in-law Jared Kushner has said he will “absolutely” send his children back to school when classes reopen, despite widespread concerns that personal learning puts children, faculty and their families at risk from Covid -19 .
The Trump administration has urged schools across the country to reopen, despite concerns. One public school district in Arizona was forced to cancel plans to reopen Monday after more than 100 teachers and other staff members became ill.
In its latest guidance, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the number and incidence of coronavirus cases in children “slowly” increased from March to July, but the true number of cases remains unknown due to a lack of testing.
However, Kushner, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday morning that he was not worried about his children returning to ‘class’ because children have a six times higher chance of to die from the flu then from the coronavirus, so based on the data I have seen, I do not believe this is a risk. “
Kushner has three children with Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter.
“This virus affects different people at different rates,” he said. “Our school does not open five days a week. I wish they would, but we are definitely sending our kids back.”
In its lead update, the CDC said school closures could have contributed to early low rates of cases in children early in the pandemic.
“This may explain the low incidence in children compared to adults,” the agency said. “Comparing trends in pediatric infections before and after returning to personal school and other activities can provide additional understanding about infections in children.”
Kushner also defended the Trump administration’s response to the pandemic as “aggressive,” even though daily deaths last week reached 1,500, and are often more than 1,000 a day, compared to May’s death toll. Covid-19 has killed nearly 170,000 people in the US and more than 5.3m cases have been reported nationwide, the highest number in the world.
“The most important thing is that the president has really advanced the use of a lot of therapeutics, which brings the death toll of the case better,” he added.
In fact, Trump has been widely criticized for promoting the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, despite mounting evidence that it does not work for patients with coronavirus. Trump also surprised public health experts by suggesting that people could receive disinfectant injections to cure the coronavirus, a term described as “dangerous” and “claw-like”.
During a performance on CBS ‘Face the Nation, Chicago Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot pointed out that reopening of schools poses a problem not only for children but also for adults.
“It’s not just the students themselves,” Lightfoot said. ‘It’s the whole ecosystem of the school. You have teachers, you have principals, and you have staff. ‘She said that many staff at schools are over 60, making them’ a vulnerable population ‘.
She added that the federal response to Covid-19 had exacerbated the US pandemic. “Fighting the White House, the CDC, the HHS hijacking reporting process, we do not yet have a federal mask policy. The federal-level chaos has not benefited anyone, not Chicago, Illinois, or states across the country, ”said Lightfoot.
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