President Donald Trump wants schools to reopen in the fall and argues it is safer for students to be in school.
But, some are raising questions after 900 students in Georgia being quarantined after schools reopened in the state due to COVID-19 concerns.
In an interview on Fox News on Wednesday, Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway was pressed on the administration’s push for schools to reopen in light of the situation in Georgia.
“The most important word, Sandra, is safely,” she said. “We want schools to reopen safely. About half of American students right now will not be returning to a physical classroom I read, beginning on the first day of school. But, we want them to open soon and safely, and we’re coming up with eight measures or so on how to do that.”
She added that a Health and Human Services (HHS) official told her that there are “billions of dollars” for testing in states, and schools that have “barely been tapped.”
“So, if that is important to your district, get that money, it’s already been allocated,” she added.
Additionally, Conway encouraged parents, teachers, and students to “understand” what the administration has been saying about “socially distancing and hygiene and wearing masks where you can’t socially distance.”
Trump has repeatedly pushed for schools to reopen in the fall, as IJR reported.
During a recent interview on Fox News, Trump reiterated his opinion, “My view is the schools should open. This thing is going away.”
“It will go away like things go away, and my view is that schools should be open,” he added.
Trump also falsely claimed that children are “virtually immune.” He said, “It doesn’t have an impact on them, and I have watched some doctors say they’re totally immune.”
However, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said that is not the case, as IJR reported.
During an appearance on CBS News’ “Face The Nation,” he said, “We need to have a degree of humility, children are not immune to this virus. We have seen bad outcomes. The CDC recently documented 570 cases of the multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children.”
“There’s more cases that are accruing. We’ve seen children die. There’s 86 kids who have died from this and thousands that have been hospitalized,” he added.
Trump is scheduled to discuss the issue of reopening schools Wednesday afternoon at the White House.