Last week, Vice President Mike Pence revealed that the Trump administration was going to press forward with school reopenings at any cost—even if children were at risk. "We don’t want the guidance from CDC to be a reason why schools don’t open," Pence told reporters at a White House task force meeting.
It seemed like a talking point that would die a hard and fast death since Pence was basically admitting the administration was more committed to reopening schools than to protecting the health of children, not to mention their entire extended families. But that turned out to be wishful thinking in a White House that repeatedly pumps life into the most monstrous ideas imaginable and then watches with delight as they leave death and destruction in their trail.
So naturally, on Tuesday Pence repeated almost the same exact talking point at another task force briefing, noting Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance shouldn't stand in the way of reopenings. And on Thursday, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany expanded the White House stance beyond the reaches of just CDC recommendations.
"The president has said unmistakably that he wants schools to open," McEnany told reporters at the White House briefing. "When he says open, he means open and full, kids being able to attend each and every day at their school. The science should not stand in the way of this."
Not just the CDC, folks—Trump won't let any "science" whatsoever dissuade him from his reckless push to reopen schools.
McEnany highlighted a quote from former Stanford Neuroradiology Chief, Dr. Scott Atlas, who told Fox News Wednesday that "everyone else in the world and the western world, our peer nations are doing it. We are the outlier here."
The White House still seems baffled by the concept that the U.S. experience isn't even remotely comparable to that of countries like Germany and New Zealand, where they contained the virus through rapid testing and tracing before moving to reopen schools.
A Quinnipiac University poll Thursday showed just 29% of voters approve of Trump’s handling of reopening schools, and 62% believe it’s unsafe to open elementary, middle, and high schools this fall. The American public clearly gets that Trump and his minions are rushing into school reopenings with exactly the same gusto they applied to reopening state economies, which has now caused a massive surge in cases that makes it practically impossible to reopen schools in many states in any sort of responsible way. In Florida, for instance, nearly one-third of children are testing positive for coronavirus, according to the Sun Sentinel. Worse yet, the Palm Beach County health director is warning that there may be potential long term effects of the COVID-19 on children despite a low likelihood of them dying from it.
“They are seeing there is damage to the lungs in these asymptomatic children. ... We don’t know how that is going to manifest a year from now or two years from now,” Alonso said. “Is that child going to have chronic pulmonary problems or not?”
Death, long-term health issues, further community spread—none of that concerns Trump, his White House, or even most elected Republicans, judging by their silence. It’s just a party of sociopaths now.