Trump administration pressured CDC to play down risks of reopening schools https://thehill.com/homenews/admini...attempted-to-play-down-the-risks-of-returning Top officials at the White House pressured leaders at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to downplay the risk of the coronavirus to children as President Trump's administration pushed to reopen schools this fall, according to a new report. Citing documents and interviews with current and former government officials, The New York Times reported Tuesday the push included an effort to find data suggesting the pandemic was weakening and the coronavirus did not threaten children. A former member of Vice President Pence's staff, who has since resigned, told the Times she was asked on more than one occasion by Marc Short, Pence's chief of staff, to convince CDC leaders to find and present proof that the virus has little effect on children. The new Times report comes on the heels of a CDC study this week reporting teenagers are twice as likely to contract coronavirus as younger children. Separately, a study commissioned by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association found a dramatic rise in coronavirus cases among children in recent weeks. Earlier this summer, the CDC was forced to revise its guidance for school reopenings after Trump pushed back on them, saying they were too "expensive" for districts and "tough." "The president said today we just don’t want the guidance to be too tough," Pence said at a news conference in July. "That's the reason why, next week, CDC is going to be issuing a new set of tools, five different documents that will be giving even more clarity on the guidance going forward." On Monday, NBC News reported CDC Director Robert Redfield was overheard on a phone call disparaging Scott Atlas, a new member of the White House coronavirus task force, whom he accused of feeding Trump bogus science about the pandemic. "Everything he says is false," Redfield said of Atlas. A White House official told The Hill on Tuesday the notion that a member of the coronavirus task force was “pressuring” Dr. Redfield to do something he didn’t agree with "seems preposterous on its face." "A conversation or comments exchanged between friends and colleagues is hardly some sort of politically-charged demand," the official said. "Asking for more precise information on a chart is not pressure either." A spokesman for the CDC declined to comment.
the Director of the CDC was quite convincing when he went on record, on TV and said he was in favor of opening schools. So the rest of this sounds a little false.
Every week -- we have one or more teachers in North Carolina die of COVID. Stanly County elementary school teacher dies after contracting COVID-19 https://www.wral.com/stanly-county-...her-dies-after-contracting-covid-19/19320789/
"An official cause of death has not been released." Huh. Isn't that interesting. Dies "after contracting COVID", official cause of death not released. Also, how do we know she got COVID from school and not a Winn Dixie or some personal event?
The school was closed down due to a COVID breakout. This continual re-direction for every example of a COVID death that they could have caught it somewhere else is nonsense. Do you have proof she was not social isolating and following the best public health practices in her personal life? It should be noted that the official cause of death is almost never COVID... it is usually something along the lines of respiratory failure.
Do you have proof she got it in school? Because the burden of proof is on you, not me. I didn't introduce this as an example of anything, you did.
Funny how none of these teachers got COVID until they opened the schools. They went so many months without getting COVID.... suddenly September rolls around and large numbers of teachers test positive and their schools are getting shut down weeks after opening in late August.
Really? Do you have a breakdown of people whose occupation was "teacher" and infections among this population prior to August? I'm betting no.
Funny how no teachers or staff members at hundreds of schools had a single case of COVID until August when they re-opened the schools. Now suddenly there are many positive cases among the staff and schools & classes are being forced to close (go virtual).