Presumptive Democrat 2020 nominee Joe Biden tweeted Friday it’s “just plain dangerous” for American children to return to school this fall, a statement that goes against the “science” as explained by a number of physicians.
“Everyone wants our schools to reopen,” Biden tweeted. “The question is how to make it safe and how to make it stick. Forcing educators and students back into classrooms in areas where infection rates are going up or remaining too high is just plain dangerous.”
Everyone wants our schools to reopen. The question is how to make it safe and how to make it stick. Forcing educators and students back into classrooms in areas where infection rates are going up or remaining too high is just plain dangerous. pic.twitter.com/8OeTj2eWdt
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 17, 2020
However, Biden’s claim that sending children back to school is “dangerous” does not hold up to the “science” standard Democrats are always touting as their guide.
For example, former Stanford University Chief of Neurology Dr. Scott Atlas told Fox News this week that a similar claim made by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is “ludicrous” and can only be described as “hysteria.”
“That’s just completely wrong, and contrary to all the science,” Atlas, now a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, told The Story host Martha MacCallum.
“I’m not sure how many times it has to be said, but the risk to children from this disease and the fatality is nearly zero,” Atlas explained. “The risk of children for a significant illness is far less from the seasonal flu … This is totally antithetical to the data.”
“Obviously, we know this by now, it’s been confirmed all over the world, children rarely transmit the disease to adults,” he continued. “But those are people that obviously either don’t know that data or are refractory to learning it themselves because the facts say otherwise.”
U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar also asserted last week on Fox News, “We must reopen schools.”
“The danger to our children is not being in school,” Azar said. “The danger to their health is not being in school.”
“We can reopen schools,” the secretary emphasized. “And we can do so in a way that is safe for staff, as well as for students, through simple, basic practices of social distancing, facial covering, and good personal hygiene.”
On Monday, MSNBC host Craig Melvin appeared to be expecting five pediatricians interviewed during one segment to say children should stay away from schools this fall.
Instead, when Dr. John Torres asked the physicians if they would send their children to school with safe precautions such as masks and social distancing plans, all five said they would send their children back to school.
As Breitbart News reported, Torres interviewed Dr. Yvonne Maldonado in California, Dr. Shilpa A. Patel in New Jersey, Dr. William V. Raszka in Vermont, Dr. Jennifer Lighter in New York, and Dr. Buddy Creech in Tennessee.
“After the segment ended a shocked looking Melvin said, ‘They all said yes,’” the report noted.
Writing at Fox News Tuesday, Dr. Nicole Saphier, a mother as well as a physician, explained why “children suggestively play a lesser role in coronavirus outbreaks than other common viral infections, not to mention, the far majority do not become as ill if they do get it”:
[I]t likely comes down to two main hypotheses: children having fewer ACE2 receptor cells in their respiratory tracts (necessary component for coronavirus to enter) and since the severity of COVID-19 seems directly linked to the body’s own immune response, children having a less complex immune system may be protective.
“Not only may children be less likely to contract the viral infection themselves but also, it seems they may not transmit it as easily to others – an important factor when deciding to re-open schools,” Saphier added.
According to a report at Science, more than 20 countries affected by the coronavirus pandemic sent their children back to school by early June.
Countries such as Taiwan, Nicaragua, and Sweden never even closed their schools, the report noted.
In the Joe Biden-Bernie Sanders “Unity Task Force” proposal, the Biden campaign, backed by the teachers’ unions, states (p. 22) sending children back to school requires, in their view, “increased investments in public education” for their social justice agenda:
The emergency conditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic have vividly demonstrated to parents, students, and educators across the country that there is no sustainable, long-term substitute for high-quality, in-classroom learning. Significant gaps in access to technology, including lack of access to high-speed broadband, have deepened inequities in our educational system for students of color, students with disabilities, and students in rural and under-resourced neighborhoods during this pandemic. We will need increased investments in public education to help students get back on track when public health experts determine it is safe to return to schools.
.@JoeBiden on leading through COVID: “The longer schools are closed and classes are remote, the more students, especially low-income students and students of color, fall behind.” #NEARA2020 https://t.co/A1B7d74IFm pic.twitter.com/cjLMPahnHl
— NEA (@NEAToday) July 3, 2020
In fact, Democrats and teachers’ unions demanded $305 billion in coronavirus aid, claiming the taxpayer funds are necessary to reopen public schools “safely.”
“States will have to be spending 20 percent more on schools,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, according to CNN. “If they don’t, it means we’ll have more remote education next year.”
“Anybody who’s not seriously negotiating right now doesn’t really want to reopen schools for children,” she added.
But, perhaps more importantly, the Biden-Sanders unity plan demonstrates the striking difference between Biden and President Donald Trump regarding who directs the education of children in America.
Biden’s unity plan states (p. 22):
As Democrats, we believe that education is a critical public good—not a commodity—and that it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that every child, everywhere, is able to receive a world-class education that enables them to lead meaningful lives.
For Biden, it is the government that is in control of the education of American children – not parents. The Trump administration, however, with its focus on parental choice of education options, keeps the focus on parents choosing the best “world-class education” setting for their child.
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