Trump hits out at schools for not reopening
DONALD TRUMP said schools were making a “terrible” decision in not reopening for in-person lessons after some of America’s largest school districts rejected his demand.
The US president hit out at Los Angeles and San Diego, California’s two largest school districts, over their decision to only provide virtual lessons for the academic year beginning in August. “I would tell parents and teachers that you should find yourself a new person, whoever’s in charge of that decision, because it’s a terrible decision,” Mr Trump told ABC News.
“Because children and parents are dying from that trauma, too. They’re dying because they can’t do what they’re doing. Mothers can’t go to work because all of a sudden they have to stay home and watch their child, and fathers,” he added.
Several of the country’s school systems have opted for virtual classrooms or are planning to open their schools just two or three days a week.
New York City’s schools will offer a mixture of in-person and online learning, while Maryland’s largest district, which includes Washington DC suburbs, is proposing online classes only.
However Florida, the epicentre of the US outbreak, has ordered the state’s public schools to reopen in August for the entire school week.
Mr Trump’s education secretary, Betsy Devos, has come under heavy criticism for demanding that schools reopen without offering a plan for how to do so safely. During TV interviews she has repeatedly insisted that schools “must fully open and they must be fully operational”. In one disastrous interview, Ms Devos failed to offer any reopening guidelines for schools to follow when pressed by CNN, finally suggesting they follow “examples that have been used in the private sector”.
The education secretary also dismissed guidelines for schools produced by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the top US health agency, as mere “recommendations”.
Mr Trump has also threatened to withhold federal funding or remove tax-exempt status from schools that do not open for in-person teaching.
But in a separate development the US president, who has hitherto been reluctant to embrace the use of face masks to halt the spread of coronavirus, appeared to backtrack on Tuesday night when he told CBS that Americans should wear them “if necessary”.
Mr Trump’s comments come as the surge in Covid-19 cases moves beyond the hotspots, with record numbers of infections or deaths now also being reported in Missouri, Oklahoma, Nevada, North Carolina and Alabama.
Two states with some of the worst outbreaks, Texas and Arizona, have braced for a huge increase in fatalities from the virus.
Officials in the states have requested refrigerated trucks with some counties’ morgues already at capacity. As the numbers of cases soars, the Trump administration yesterday ordered hospitals and laboratories to bypass the CDC in reporting its Covid-19 cases and send the data directly to Washington.
Up until now, the CDC has served as a key open-data source for the press and the public to track how the country is doing. However, the new guidelines mean all Covid-19 patient information will be held privately by the Trump administration.
Critics fear the move means the figures will be politicised or concealed from the public.