This summer, White House officials pressured the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to play down the risk of sending children back to school. White House Coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah L. Birx, and Marc Short, chief of staff for Vice President Mike Pence, and Paul Alexander, a senior adviser to HHS assistant secretary Michael Caputo, tried to get CDC scientists to downplay the danger of COVID-19 to children, teenagers, and young adults in a political effort to get schools to reopen.
More:
“Behind the White House Effort to Pressure the C.D.C. on School Openings,” Mark Mazzetti, Noah Weiland and Sharon LaFraniere, New York Times
“Trump official pressured CDC to change report on Covid and kids,” Dan Diamond, Politico
“We Can’t Allow the CDC to Be Tainted by Politics,” Richard E. Besser, Scientific American
Related:
“COVID-19 Cases Rising Among U.S. Children as Schools Reopen,” AP via Education Week
“‘Children have become acceptable carnage,’” Andrew Atterbury, Nicole Gaudiano, Mackenzie Mays, Juan Perez Jr., and Madina Touré, Politico
“Children’s role in spread of virus bigger than thought,” The Harvard Gazette
“10 facts about school reopenings in the Covid-19 pandemic,” Anna North, Vox
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Tags: adolescents, CDC, Centers for Disease Control, children, Coronavirus, COVID-19, education, K-12, K-12 education, Michael Caputo, MMWR, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, novel coronavirus, Paul Alexander, political interference, public health, reopening schools, schools, young adults
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