Trump's latest argument for reopening schools has a glaring omission

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last updated 8 July 2020

It's not often President Trump compliments European countries, but he did just that Wednesday while doubling down on a call for schools to reopen in the United States amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump's latest reasoning is that countries like Germany, Sweden, and Norway have found success sending kids back to the classroom, which is mostly true. But it ignores the fact that the national situations aren't really comparable at this point, since the U.S. is still facing uncontrolled spread of the disease.

And while those countries have smaller populations than the U.S., the proportionality argument doesn't really hold. Arizona, Florida, and South Carolina would have had the world's most new infections per capita last week if they were countries, The New York Times reports. U.S. states take up nine of the top 12 spots, with the other three occupied by Bahrain, Qatar, and Oman, all of which, the Times notes, rely heavily on migrant workers who live in cramped quarters with subpar social services.

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So it seems unlikely municipalities will choose to reopen schools simply because Denmark has been able to do so. Shortly after the president's tweet — in which he threatened to withhold federal funding for schools that stayed shut in the fall — New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the country's largest public school system wouldn't be back to normal operations in the fall. Instead, students will receive classroom instruction one to three days a week. Read more about New York's plan at The New York Times.

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.

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