Dr. Birx could save Ducey from path of bus

I’m wondering if Gov. Doug Ducey has ever seen the undercarriage of one of those large rectangular motor vehicles that carry passengers on Valley streets.

Because he’s about to.

Having been tossed beneath one by President Donald Trump.

After weeks of the president demanding that governors fully reopen schools for in-person classes, White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx has hedged her bets, saying that perhaps places that are coronavirus hotspots should hold off on reopening.

She told CNN’s Dana Bash that she agrees with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield, who says that communities with a COVID-19 positivity rate greater than 5% should rely on distance learning.

Arizona has seen a steady decline, which is good news, but has been well above a 5% positive rate for some time.

On CNN Dr. Birx said, “I certainly would endorse what Dr. Redfield is saying. In the areas where we have this widespread case increase, we need to stop the cases, and then we can talk about safely reopening.”

What that means, of course, is that Trump now has a scapegoat if some school reopenings don’t go well. A whole bunch of scapegoats, actually, of which Ducey happens to be one. I heard them referred to recently as Trump’s “pet” governors.

You might say the president has been gaslighting them for months. He had Education Secretary Betsy DeVos out there pushing for full reopening, saying opening schools would not pose a threat to safety, saying life is about risks.

(Though it always seems to be other people’s risks, where Trump is concerned.)

Trump threatened to cut the funding of public schools that don’t fully reopen their classrooms. He told Chris Wallace on Fox News, “Schools have to open. Young people have to go to school. And there’s problems when you don’t go to school, too. And there’s going to be a funding problem . ... We’re not going to give them money if they’re not going to school, if they don’t open their schools.”

Now, Trump has Dr. Birx out there hedging his bets for him.

If things go right, he’ll take the credit. If things go sideways, he’ll pass the buck.

There have been some sobering examples of potential danger.

A summer camp in Georgia opened in late June with more than 300 campers ranging in age from 6 to 19. After a teen staff member showed signs of COVID-19 there was a rash of testing, both of campers and of staff. Of those tests, 260 came back positive, with 231

of them aged 17 or younger. The camp closed.

A CDC report on the episode says, “Asymptomatic infection was common and potentially contributed to undetected transmission, as has been previously reported. This investigation adds to the body of evidence demonstrating that children of all ages are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection and, contrary to early reports, might play an important role in transmission.”

Ducey has called his school reopening date of Aug. 17 “aspirational.”

It’s been suggested by a number of people – including 60 school board members from around the state – that he put that off until Oct. 1.

Now is Ducey’s chance to do so.

Dr. Birx not only provided cover for Trump, she opened the door for governors like Ducey to do the right thing, to wait for the positivity rate to go down and for a sustained decrease in coronavirus cases. And make sure there are solid, convincing plans in place for safety when they do reopen.

That way, no one gets thrown under the bus. Or the school bus.