Trump Administration Back-to-School Special

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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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Mommy’s Little Virus Vector

There are  56 million K-12 students in the United States, and school districts, politicians, some and parents are anxious for them to get back to schoolrooms and off the kitchen table virtual classroom. But information on COVID-19 in children is just coming to light, and attempts at safely re-opening schools have been spotty and uneven.

Though Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and other Trump idolators prefer to operate in the absence of facts, a new study of 85,000 people with COVID-19 and their 575,000 contacts found that children contract and transmit the coronavirus as frequently as their elders. That means kids, especially the super-spreaders among them, can infect each other, their teachers, and their parents and caregivers. Teachers, understandably, are concerned. And while infected children are less likely to suffer fatalities, there appear to be long-term consequences of COVID-19 infection.

Until September, child sacrifice in the U.S. was a weird QAnon conspiracy theory. Opening schools in a pandemic without real planning makes it reality.

More:

“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

__________________
Short Link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-vKq

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.