Trump defies Fauci, wants schools open
US President Donald Trump called on governors across the nation to work to reopen schools that were closed because of the coronavirus, pointedly taking issue with Anthony Fauci’s caution against moving too quickly in sending students back to class.
Trump accused Fauci of wanting “to play all sides of the equation,” a comment that suggested he is tiring of the nation’s top infectious disease expert. “I think they should open the schools, absolutely. I think they should,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “Our country’s got to get back and it’s got to get back as soon as possible. And I don’t consider our country coming back if the schools are closed.”
Fauci had urged caution in testimony before a Senate committee Tuesday, although he made clear that he believes reopening decisions will likely differ from one region to the next. “We don’t know everything about this virus and we really better be pretty careful, particularly when it comes to children,” Fauci told the committee. At one point, he told members that “the idea of having treatments available or a vaccine to facilitate the re-entry of students into the fall term would be something that would be a bit of a bridge too far.”
Fauci later clarified he was not implying students should be barred from returning to class until a Covid-19 vaccine is developed. But his comments were nonetheless seized on by conservative commentators, as well as Senator Rand Paul, who called the notion “kind of ridiculous.”
“To me, it’s not an acceptable answer,” Trump said of Fauci on Wednesday. He said the coronavirus has “had very little impact on young people.”