Trump says he would take a coronavirus vaccine
President Trump said Wednesday that he would be comfortable with his son and grandchildren physically returning to school in the fall, asserting that children do not catch or spread coronavirus easily.
Asked during a White House news conference whether he’d be comfortable with his family members returning to school, Trump responded, “Yeah, well I am comfortable with that.”
Trump was also asked if his administration planned to develop a national strategy for getting children to return to schools in the fall, to which he replied, “We do have a national strategy. But as you know, ultimately it’s up to the governors of the states.”
“I think most governors, many governors, want these schools to open. I would like to see open,” he said, adding that children have “strong immune systems.”
“They don’t transmit very easily (to others) and a lot of people are saying they don’t transmit,” the President claimed, without evidence. “We’re looking at that … they don’t bring it home with them.”
“They don’t catch it easily, they don’t bring it home easily and if they do catch it, they get better fast,” Trump asserted. “We’re looking at that fact. That is a factor and we’re looking at that strongly We’ll be reporting about that over the next week.”
But, US Surgeon General Jerome Adams recently told CBS News that though the risk to children getting coronavirus is low, they can still transmit it to others.
“We know the risk is low to the actual students. But we know they can transmit to others. … We need to take measures to make sure we protect those who are vulnerable either because they are older or they have chronic medical conditions,” Adams said.
Researchers in South Korea have also found that children between the ages of 10 and 19 transmit Covid-19 within a household just as often as adults do, according to research published in the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention journal Emerging Infectious Diseases earlier this week. They also found that children ages 9 and under transmitted the virus, as well, although at lower rates.
CNN reported earlier Wednesday that in Florida, which is among the sunbelt states seeing a surge in coronavirus cases, a 9-year-old girl has become the youngest person in the state to die from coronavirus complications. The girl is not known to have had underlying medical conditions and has become the fifth minor to die from Covid-19 in the state.
More than 23,000 children under the age of 18 have tested positive for coronavirus, and more that 13% of children who get tested turn out to be infected. The state’s total number of confirmed cases now stands at 379,619.
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