- White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Thursday that President Trump wants America’s schools to be “open and full” and that “science should not get in the way of this.”
- McEnany then cited a study that found that the risk of critical illness from COVID-19 in children is lower than that of seasonal flu, adding that “science is on our side here.”
- But public health experts have warned against reopening schools because there is not enough research on how children react to the new coronavirus.
- The Trump administration’s push to reopen schools comes as states across the country report new waves of coronavirus infections and hospitalizations.
- A series of recent polls also show that parents and Americans are cautious about restarting education in person and don’t buy Trump’s rhetoric about it.
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White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Thursday that President Donald Trump “unequivocally” wants America’s schools to be opened and that “science should not hinder this.”
McEnany was asked about school districts across the country that decide to teach online only when the academic year begins in the fall. “What does the president say to parents who say, ‘OK, what do I do with my children?'” Asked a journalist.
“The president has said unequivocally that he wants the schools to be opened,” McEnany replied. “I was in the Oval talking to him about it, and when he says open, he means open and complete, children can attend his school every day.”
“Science shouldn’t get in the way of this, and as Dr. Scott Atlas said, I thought it was a good quote: ‘Of course we can do this. Everyone in the Western world, our peer nations are doing this, we they are outliers here, ‘”McEnany said.
He was referring to statements that Atlas, the former head of Stanford University’s neuroradiology department, made during an appearance on Fox News on Wednesday.
McEnany went on to say that “the science is very clear on this.” He also referenced a JAMA study of 46 pediatric hospitals in North America. The study showed that “the risk of critical illness from COVID is much lower for children than that of seasonal flu. Science is on our side here,” McEnany said.
However, many public health officials have warned against reopening schools because insufficient research has yet been done on how children react to the new coronavirus, which causes a disease known as COVID-19. They also warn that the reopening of schools could present a particularly high risk of infection given that schools are indoor spaces that are often poorly ventilated and have hundreds of people talking and interacting.
“We encourage localities and states to simply follow science, open our schools,” said McEnany. “It is very damaging to our children: there is a lack of allegations of abuse, there are mental depressions that are not addressed, suicidal ideas that are not addressed when students are not in school. Our schools are extremely important, they are essential and must return to open “.
—The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) July 16, 2020
The Trump administration has doubled its efforts to push states to reopen schools in recent days.
“Children need to go back to school, they need to go back to the classroom,” Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told CNN this week. “Families need children to return to the classroom. And it can be done safely.”
Admiral Brett Giroir, undersecretary of health, played a similar chord and told ABC’s “This Week” that “we are all very concerned.”
Both DeVos and Giroir emphasized that social distancing measures have yet to be observed and that the plan to reopen schools may vary depending on the severity of the coronavirus outbreak in different locations.
The president has also renewed his efforts to force schools to reopen, at one point threatening to withhold federal funds from districts that refuse to reopen (something he does not have the power to do unilaterally).
