President Donald Trump on Wednesday reprimanded Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of his top health advisers, after the nation’s foremost infectious-diseases expert urged caution when it comes to reopening schools amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“He wants to play all sides of the equation,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, clashed during a Senate hearing on Tuesday with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who said it would be “a huge mistake” to keep schools closed this fall.
“I think we better be careful if we are not cavalier in thinking that children are completely immune to the deleterious effects,” Fauci told members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee during a hearing at which he appeared virtually because of a “low risk” exposure to coronavirus last week.
Public-health officials have repeatedly sought to downplay a false sense of security surrounding the virus because of its disproportionate effect on older people or those with preexisting health conditions, something Fauci reiterated on Tuesday.
He warned that the public needed to be cautious, particularly when it came to how the virus affects children, and pointed to a spate of cases of a rare inflammatory illness being reported in young children with potential links to coronavirus.
“You're right in the numbers that children in general do much, much better than adults, and the elderly, and particularly those with underlying conditions,” Fauci told Paul, though he explained that experts were still uncovering more information about the novel pathogen.
“I am very careful, and hopefully humble, in knowing that I don’t know everything about this disease — and that’s why I’m very reserved in making broad predictions,” he said.
But Trump chastised Fauci’s cautious approach on Wednesday during a meeting with governors at the White House, urging schools to open back up while ignoring Fauci’s warning.
“I was surprised by his answer, actually, because, you know, it’s just, to me, it’s not an acceptable answer, especially when it comes to schools,” Trump said.
Earlier, he’d told reporters that he “absolutely” thinks schools should reopen in the fall, aside from some older employees potentially delaying their return a little longer.
“I think they should. It’s had very little impact on young people,” the president said. “I think you should absolutely open the schools. Our country has got to get back and it’s got to get back as soon as possible, and I don’t consider our country coming back if the schools are closed.”
While he acknowledged that he’d punted that decision to state leaders, Trump made clear where he stood: “The state is not open if the schools are not open.”
Fauci said bluntly on Tuesday that the notion that a vaccine or treatment for the highly transmissible virus would be ready by the time students are preparing to head back to school this fall, in order to “facilitate” their return, “would be a bit of a bridge too far.”
“Even at the top speed we’re going, we don’t see a vaccine playing in the ability of individuals to get back to school this term,” he told the panel.
Fauci later reiterated that he didn’t “mean to imply at all any relationship between the availability of a vaccine and treatment and our ability to go back to school.”
His comments came after the California State University system, the largest of its kind in the country, announced it would cancel most in-person classes throughout the fall semester. A slew of other colleges, however, have tentatively said they plan to hold in-person classes this fall.
Earlier in the hearing on Tuesday, Fauci also warned of “really serious” consequences if states moved too quickly to reopen after weeks of virus-related lockdowns without ensuring they have the capability to respond to new infections.
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May 14, 2020 at 06:23AM
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Trump tweaks Fauci on school reopenings: ‘He wants to play all sides of the equation’ - POLITICO
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