WASHINGTON (AP) — President Trump's administration is providing false assurances on the safety of schoolchildren during the coronavirus pandemic.
In remarks Sunday, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos urged schools to provide full-time, in-person learning in the fall even with community transmission of Covid-19 rising in many parts of the country, saying that there is no danger "in any way" if children are in school.
Her statement is unsupported. Many children have become seriously ill from the virus, and one of Trump's top health experts stresses that data remain incomplete about potential risks they could spread Covid-19 to adults.
Meanwhile, Trump continued to spread falsehoods about how well the United States is doing with the coronavirus even as the nation leads the world in infections and deaths and does not have it under control.
Here is a look at recent claims and reality.
Schools
DEVOS: "There's nothing in the data that suggests that kids being in school is in any way dangerous." — interview on "Fox News Sunday"
THE FACTS: That's wrong. Although children appear to be less likely than adults to develop Covid-19, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has counted tens of thousands of infections by the virus in Americans younger than 18. It's false to claim that there are no risks "in any way" seen in data.
Apart from the risks to children, there is also the chance that they would spread the disease to adults, such as teachers, parents and grandparents.
DeVos’s false assurance overlooks severe Covid-19 illnesses and deaths of children in the United States, even though kids in general tend to get less sick from it than adults do. Doctors don't know why, nor which children are at risk.
The CDC in April studied the pandemic's effect on different ages in the United States and reviewed preliminary research in China, where the coronavirus emerged. It said social distancing is important for children, too, for their own safety and that of others.
"Whereas most Covid-19 cases in children are not severe, serious Covid-19 illness resulting in hospitalization still occurs in this age group," the CDC study said.
In May, the CDC warned doctors to be on the lookout for a rare but life-threatening inflammatory reaction in some children who have had the coronavirus. The condition had been reported in more than 100 children in New York, and in some kids in several other states and in Europe, with some deaths.
The agency's current guidance for communities on the reopening of K-12 schools says the goal is to "help protect students, teachers, administrators, and staff and slow the spread of Covid-19." The guidance says "full sized, in person classes" present the "highest risk" of spreading the virus and advises face masks, spreading out of desks, staggered schedules, eating meals in classrooms instead of the cafeteria and "staying home when appropriate" to help avert spikes in virus cases.
Last week, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus coordinator, said the United States has not tested enough children to know whether they may drive the spread of the coronavirus.
___
The pandemic
TRUMP: "Deaths in the U.S. are way down." — tweet on July 6, one of at least a half dozen heralding a drop in daily deaths from the virus
THE FACTS: It's true that deaths dipped as infections spiked in many parts of the country. But deaths lag sickness. And now the widely expected upturn in U.S. deaths has begun, driven by fatalities in states in the South and West, according to data analyzed by The Associated Press.
"It's a false narrative to take comfort in a lower rate of death," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Tuesday. He advised Americans: "Don't get yourself into false complacency."
