It is no secret that Donald Trump and his administration are bent on making sure that children return to the classrooms in the fall, despite health officials warning that it could lead to a surge in coronavirus cases and jeopardize the safety of the children, teachers and other staff members. The president continued to push for schools to reopen during a recently concluded interview.
Trump made an appearance on Fox News Sunday, where he alluded to New Jersey's death rate for children to support his claim. "Let the schools open," the president emphasized pointing at the statistics for children below the age of 18.
Of thousands of deaths in New Jersey, there is one person below the age of 18. Trump said he believes that the one person who succumbed to the virus had diabetes. Pointing out that one person below the age of 18 died in the state during the surge in coronavirus cases, but they have come out of a hard time and are doing well now.
The State Health Department report, on the other hand, suggests two children below the age of 5 had died during an increase in cases in New Jersey. A 4-year-old with an underlying medical condition was the first victim of the virus in New Jersey back in May, and another young individual died from coronavirus related complications in June.
State officials say New Jersey has had nearly 15,706 confirmed and probable deaths, which is second in the United States only to New York, and about 176,780 cases the outbreak started in Mar. this year. Of all these cases, over 4,700 were under the age of 18.
Trump pushed governors to reopen businesses, but it led to an uncontrollable increase in cases in several states including Texas and Florida. Now, the president is urging the school districts to follow suit, threatening to withhold federal funds from schools that refuse to reopen.
In an interview on Fox, the president warned that he would not fund the schools that do not reopen in the fall. He remained mum about the risk involved with reopening schools, especially the danger of contracting the virus the children, teachers, and staff members will be exposed to.
New Jersey has over 2,500 public schools and more than 116,000 full-time classroom teachers, according to the state's new statistics. In Fox News polls, only 15 percent of respondents wanted schools to open as usual, while 21 percent of schools can reopen with social distancing and masks, 25 percent insisted on remote learning and 31 percent supported the idea of introducing a combination of in-person and remote learning.