On Thursday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany offered this excellent answer to a question about what the President would say to parents concerned about sending their children to school:
You know, the president has said unequivocally that he wants schools to open. And I was in the oval talking to him about it. And when it says open, it means completely open: children can attend their school every day.
Science should not get in the way of this. And as Dr. Scott Atlas said, I thought it was a good quote: “Of course, we can [do it]. Everyone else in … the western world, our peer nations are doing it. We are the outliers here.
The science is very clear about it, observes the JAMA Pediatrics study of 46 pediatric hospitals in North America that says the risk of critical illness from COVID is much lower for children than that of seasonal flu.
Science is on our side here, and we encourage localities and states to simply follow science and open our schools. It is very harmful to our children: there is a lack of reporting of abuse; there are mental depressions that are not addressed; Suicides that are not addressed when students are not in school. Our schools are essential and must reopen.
She has exactly the right science, as I’ve compiled a little here.
So what did the Washington Post, CNN, CBS, and many others do with that statement? They cited “Science shouldn’t get in the way of this,” out of context as if it were the full quote. Not mentioned “Science is on our side here, and we encourage localities and states to simply follow science and open our schools.”
This is not news coverage, it is distortion and propaganda. And they did it with clear knowledge and malicious intent. Here are some more:
Let’s be clear about what’s going on here. The scientific evidence is overwhelming that children have a staggeringly low risk, much lower than the everyday risks we accept without thinking twice.
These are the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control, confirming once again what CDC Director Robert Redfield called “very limited pathogenicity” among people under the age of 45 in his recent comments in the White House against school closings.
According to the CDC, there have been a total of 14 COVID deaths among children ages 5 to 14 since February 1. During the same period of time, it started after the peak of the flu season: That age group had 47 flu deaths and 72 pneumonia deaths.
The same story about hospitalizations. According to the CDC COVIDView: “Overall cumulative hospitalization rates for COVID-19 at this time are higher than cumulative hospitalization rates for influenza at the end of the season in each of the last 5 influenza seasons. However, for children (0-17 years), the cumulative rates of hospitalization for COVID-19 are much lower than the cumulative rates of hospitalization for influenza during the last influenza seasons.” (emphasis added).
We have data from around the world and more every day that shows that schools pose virtually no risk to students or staff. A joint study by Sweden’s national health authorities, where primary schools never closed, and Finland, where schools reopened on May 13, found:
Severe covid-19 disease measured in ICU admission is very rare in both countries in this age group and no deaths were reported. Outbreak investigations in Finland have not shown that children contribute much in terms of transmission and in Sweden, a report comparing the risk of covid-19 in different professions did not show an increased risk for teachers. In conclusion, the closure or not of schools did not have a measurable direct impact on the number of laboratory confirmed cases in school-age children in Finland or Sweden.
A recent study from Dresden in the state of Saxony, Germany, found that children not only do not increase the spread of the disease, but also serve as brakes, ending the chains of transmission. According to the study, Saxony, which has had schools open for months, is dropping its mask requirement.
The enormous risks and damage of school closings continue to increase. Children suffer tremendous educational setbacks due to loss of instructional time and social and emotional isolation. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for high school students; even a 1 percent increase would mean more deaths in that age group than we have seen with COVID. Don’t trust my word. Redfield said July 7, “The greatest risk to our society is if we have schools closed.”
But as soon as President Trump opposed closing schools, the media and Democrats reacted with extremely negative partisanship, seeking to exploit parents’ fears and anxieties to earn political points against the President. We need to do better than give in to those fears and anxieties, and the dishonestly politically motivated media campaign to exploit them. We owe it to our children.
Dr. Mark McDonald said it much better than I did in these comments to the Orange County School Board, which voted for the full opening of the school without masks or social distancing after hearing McDonald speak. He said:
Children don’t die from Covid-19. Children do not transmit the disease to adults. So the only question is: ‘Why are we having this meeting tonight?’ We meet because adults are afraid.
As parents, we will face many moments of anxiety: seeing our children on their first day of kindergarten, their first day of camp, their first year of college. We may want to keep them home to protect them from the world, which can indeed be a scary place. But let’s be clear, when we do that, we are not really protecting our children. We are just trying to control our own anxiety, and we do it at your expense. We are acting like negligent parents. We are harming our children. We are failing them.
We must accept making decisions in the best interest of children. If we do not, if, paralyzed by fear, we continue to act exclusively in our own interest, we will secure an entire generation of traumatized young adults, sent to perpetual adolescence and residence in their parents’ garages, unable to move through life. . with independence, courage and confidence. They deserve better: we owe it to them as parents.
