Everyone must wear a mask for 100 days, and it will take $100 billion to reopen the schools, despite health experts agreeing that schools do not present a risk for spreading the Wuhan virus. Welcome to Joe Biden’s approach to dealing with a pandemic. It is already clear that the presumed 46th president’s strategy is going to be a catastrophe.
As cases of COVID reportedly soar across the U.S., former Vice President Biden has a message and a plan for schools if he is officially elected to the Oval Office. Despite his constant bearding of Donald Trump for not following experts’ advice or doing enough to stem the infection rate of the novel virus, Biden now suggests that schools have the “highest risk” of people who can transmit the disease. To combat this, he claims $100 billion in funding is needed to safely reopen schools.
On Dec. 3, Biden told CNN’s Jake Tapper: “We can safely open those elementary schools where the highest risk of people transmitting the disease, Number one.” He continued:
“Number two, we can make it safe for teachers if we invest in what needs to be done. Number one, sanitizing the schools. Number two, making sure that they have ventilation. Number three, making sure there’s smaller pods of children, meaning you need more teachers. You’ve got to pay for this stuff. It was estimated that we could open those schools for somewhere around $100 billion nationwide.”
Despite the Science to the Contrary
school with masks
If Trump failed so miserably following expert advice, then what does that say about Biden’s plans? Several studies have been conducted to determine what dangers exist in returning students to school. Even Dr. Anthony Fauci himself is not going into panic mode about children and teachers involved in in-person education. Here are just a few of the studies that contradict Biden’s claim that educational institutions are the “highest risk.”
New York City
In October, a study of public schools in the Big Apple conducted random tests of 16,348 staff members and students. A total of 28 people (20 staff and eight students) tested positive for coronavirus. In another study, mobile testing units were set up at schools near Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods, resulting in only four positive results out of more than 3,300 people tested.
Scotland
Some 300,000 healthcare workers were studied and tested, with an even more encouraging result. The study found that “Background Children are relatively protected from novel coronavirus infection.” In other words, it appears that adults who live with children can somehow build up an immunity, per se, to COVID:
“The reasons for this protection are not well understood, but differences in the immune response to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) have been implicated. If such differences are due to differential exposure to non-SARS-CoV-2 infectious agents, adults who are close contacts of children may partly share in this protection. Such a protective effect would have important implications for the lives of children, not least in terms of schooling.”
And even more contradictory to Biden’s panic: “If differential exposure to infectious agents is an important mechanism [in protecting children], adults who are close contacts of children, such as childcare providers, teachers, and parents may also benefit.”
Germany
The Germans found a similar result when performing their study: “An obvious hypothesis derived from this data is that certain childhood infections might provide partial immunity against COVID-19 and potentially reduce the need for ICU therapy in adults.” The claim that children have a higher risk factor (or even just a high risk) of spreading and contracting the virus has not been proven. Professor Reinhard Berner, head of pediatric medicine at Dresden University Hospital, said: “it is rather the opposite. Children act more as a brake on infection. Not every infection that reaches them is passed on.”
Dr. Fauci
Dr. Anthony Fauci
The man who is supposed to be America’s expert on infectious diseases – especially the coronavirus – and who serves as the White House virus expert even agrees, to a point. Last week, Fauci said: “If you look at the data, the spread among children and from children is not really very big at all, not like one would have suspected. So, let’s try to get the kids back.”
The experts have spoken, and studies have been conducted. There is no proof that returning children to in-person learning will lead to a massive spread of the virus or infections in young students. In fact, it appears as if going back to normal might just give a boost to the collective immune system in adults. So, why the $100 billion to fix something that apparently isn’t even broken? Can you say “windfall for teachers’ unions?”
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Read more from Kelli Ballard.
