Health secretary Azar wrongly claims 'health-care workers don't get infected' in argument for reopening schools

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.
(Image credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

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.

President Trump demanded "schools must open in the fall" in a Monday tweet, and DeVos responded that he was "absolutely right." Trump's tweet came not long after Harvard University and other colleges began announcing their intentions to go fully remote this fall. Trump will deliver remarks on reopening schools later Tuesday.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

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.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Kathryn Krawczyk

Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.