Khaleej Times

Kids are not immune, Mr President

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washington — President Donald Trump on Thursday insisted that his comment about children being nearly immune to the coronaviru­s — which Facebook and Twitter blocked for being false — was “perfect.”

It was “a perfect statement, a statement about youth,” Trump told conservati­ve radio host Geraldo Rivera. He was referring to the unpreceden­ted decision by Facebook late on Wednesday to take down a clip from the president’s account for violating its content rules on misinforma­tion.

Twitter briefly blocked Trump’s official campaign account over a tweet containing the same video.

In the video — a clip from an interview Trump did with Fox News — the president claims that children are “almost immune” to Covid-19.

Children are not immune to catching the novel coronaviru­s, although they are much less likely to become seriously ill, and deaths are extremely rare. Trump is using his claim to back up a push to get schools fully open again in September and move the country back to normality before the November 3 presidenti­al election. “Every doctor’s saying what I’m saying. Not every doctor, I guess. There’ll be some that won’t,” he told Rivera.

Trump relies heavily on Twitter and Facebook, where he has huge followings, but complained of censorship and said that “the internet is totally controlled by a few people.”

“If you happen to be on the right, if you’re a Republican or a conservati­ve Republican, what they’re doing to people is incredible,” he said.

new york — Facebook Inc on Wednesday took down a post by US President Donald Trump, which the company said violated its rules against sharing misinforma­tion about the coronaviru­s.

The post contained a video clip, from an interview with Fox & Friends earlier in the day, in which Trump claimed that children are “almost immune” to Covid-19.

“This video includes false claims that a group of people is immune from Covid-19, which is a violation of our policies around harmful Covid misinforma­tion,” a Facebook spokesman said.

A tweet containing the video that was posted by the Trump campaign’s @TeamTrump account and shared by the president was also later hidden by Twitter Inc for breaking its Covid-19 misinforma­tion rules.

A Twitter spokesman said the @ TeamTrump account owner would be required to remove the tweet before they could tweet again.

YouTube, through a spokesman, said it had also pulled down the video for violating its Covid-19 misinforma­tion policies. However, the original interview remains available on the Fox News page on the platform. YouTube did not immediatel­y respond to requests to clarify which videos were taken down. The Trump campaign accused the companies of bias against the president, saying Trump had stated a fact.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said that while adults make up most of the known Covid-19 cases to date, some children and infants have been sick with the disease and they can also transmit it to others.

An analysis by the World Health Organisati­on of 6 million infections between February 24 and

This (Trump’s) video includes false claims that a group of people is immune from Covid-19, which is a violation of our policies around harmful Covid misinforma­tion.” Facebook spokesman

July 12 found that the share of children aged 5-14 years was about 4.6 per cent.

During a briefing at the White House, Trump repeated his claim that the virus had little impact on children.

“Children handle it very well,” he told reporters. “If you look at the numbers, in terms of mortality, fatalities ... for children under a certain age ... their immune systems are very very strong and very powerful. They seem to be able to handle it very well and that’s according to every statistica­l claim.” —

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