U.S. Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ claim about children being “stoppers” of the coronavirus has garnered a response from Dr. Anthony Fauci and other health experts.
The resurgence of her claim stems from President Donald Trump’s press briefing on Wednesday evening. During the briefing, he echoed DeVos’ remarks insisting children “don’t transmit [COVID-19] very easily,” as Trump said, according to The Washington Post.
“They do say that [children] don’t transmit very easily, and a lot of people are saying they don’t transmit,” he said. “They don’t bring it home with them. They don’t catch it easily; they don’t bring it home easily.”
Prior to Trump’s remarks, DeVos cited a German study during an interview on “The Conservative Circus” radio show.
“More and more studies show that kids are actually stoppers of the disease and they don’t get it and transmit it themselves, so we should be in a posture of — the default should be getting back to school kids in person, in the classroom,” DeVos said on July 16.
Despite Trump and DeVos’ claims, health experts are suggesting otherwise. Fauci, along with other health experts, is pushing back against DeVos’ claim. During an interview on Friday, the top infectious disease expert was asked about Trump and DeVos’ claims.
According to Fauci, more studies are needed to make a solid determination that would back DeVos’ claim.
“I will give you the facts. The reason is, otherwise, it gets taken out of context,” Fauci said. “There was a study that was done and I think we still need to learn a lot about children.”
He continued, “Elementary school children getting infected, what the percentage of their infection is, and whether they either spread or not efficiently to adults.”
Fauci added:
“A recent study came out that showed children up to 10 years old, it looks like they don’t necessarily spread infection as readily as adults do. Whereas children 10-19 appear to be spreading infections to adults as equally as well as adults spreading to adults. Yet, there is still a lot to learn about what the prevalence and incidence of infection is in children. And, as a group, do they spread? Do they get antibodies? What’s the in-family spread or not.”
See Fauci’s remarks below (starting at 44:30):
Dr. John Brownstein — the chief innovation officer for Boston Children’s Hospital, who also works as a Harvard Medical School professor and ABC News contributor — also weighed in with his take on DeVos and Trump’s claims. Like Fauci, he also noted the lack of evidence regarding studies on children.
“There’s a wide range of studies on kids and the jury’s still out on their role in spreading the virus,” Brownstein said. “But I don’t think there’s evidence to say that they don’t play a role — it’s just the amount of transmission they are capable of compared to adults that’s in question.”
Fauci also confirmed the study being conducted began on May 1 and is expected to conclude in December of this year.