Lie No. 2: Clyburn *accused Team Trump of “rushing into reopening the schools” against the “advice of public-health experts.” Sorry, but the experts want schools to reopen.
At the hearing, expert witnesses Anthony Fauci, from the National Institutes of Health, and Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were emphatic. Redfield itemized the dangers — delayed learning, social isolation, undetected child abuse and even adolescent suicide — from school closings. And he called attention to his agency’s blueprint for reopening schools safely, down to how to space the desks and handle lunch time.
The CDC reports that COVID-19 poses a smaller risk to children than ordinary flu, for which schools never close. And children under age 10 are unlikely to infect family members, based on data from Switzerland, Iceland and South Korea.
The American Academy of *Pediatrics and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine are urging that at least grades K-5 reopen. These are where *remote learning is least feasible and infecting family members is unlikely.
