White House officials, including Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and Coronavirus Response Coordinator Deborah Birx held a panel on Tuesday to discuss reopening schools this fall. Azar seemed confident about reopening schools with proper precautions come September, but gave a dangerous and downright false explanation for why he supports doing so.
"Health-care workers don't get infected because they take appropriate precautions. They engage in social distancing, wear facial coverings," Azar explained Tuesday, saying if "you can do all of this, there's no reason schools have to be in any way any different." But Azar's claim simply isn't true. Thousands of health-care workers have tested positive for COVID-19 and hundreds have died of the virus, though there's no official count of just how many have contracted the disease. Those are also trained health-care professionals — children surrounded by friends they haven't seen in months surely won't be as disciplined when it comes to social distancing and school staff lack the training and expertise of nurses and doctors.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Dark energy data suggest Einstein was right (luckily)Speed Read Albert Einstein's 1915 theory of general relativity has been proven correct, according to data collected by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
-
Ukraine fires ATACMS, Russia ups hybrid warSpeed Read Ukraine shot U.S.-provided long-range missiles and Russia threatened retaliation
-
New York DA floats 4-year Trump sentencing freezeSpeed Read President-elect Donald Trump's sentencing is on hold, and his lawyers are pushing to dismiss the case while he's in office
-
ACA opens 2025 enrollment, enters 2024 raceSpeed Read Mike Johnson promises big changes to the Affordable Care Act if Trump wins the election
-
McDonald's sued over E. coli linked to burgerSpeed Read The outbreak has sickened at least 49 people in 10 states and left one dead
-
Texas dairy worker gets bird flu from infected cowSpeed Read The virus has been spreading among cattle in Texas, Kansas, Michigan and New Mexico
-
Dengue hits the Americas hard and earlySpeed Read Puerto Rico has declared an epidemic as dengue cases surge
-
US bans final type of asbestosSpeed Read Exposure to asbestos causes about 40,000 deaths in the U.S. each year
-
Seattle Children's Hospital sues Texas over 'sham' demand for transgender medical recordsSpeed Read Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton subpoenaed records of any Texan who received gender-affirming care at the Washington hospital
-
Afghanistan has a growing female suicide problemSpeed Read The Taliban has steadily whittled away women's and girls' rights in Afghanistan over the past 2 years, prompting a surge in depression and suicide
-
US life expectancy rose in 2022 but not to pre-pandemic levelsSpeed Read Life expectancy is slowly crawling back up
