Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, July 17, 2020

Several studies have established that coronavirus is not easily spread among children at school or from children to teachers.

This is good news for those urging schools to reopen in the fall, but is largely ignored by leftist politicians and media who are intent on defeating President Donald Trump in November. The latter would rather see schools remain closed and parents continue to be out of work than to give Trump any kind of victory, analysts say.

A July 16 report by Daily Caller culture reporter Marlo Safi cited several studies which found children do not easily transmit covid:

• A study by researchers at New South Wales’ National Center For Immunization Research and Surveillance in Australia looked at staff and students at five primary schools and 10 high schools from March to mid-April, and found that of 863 people who were in close contact with someone infected with coronavirus, only 2 people, or 0.23 percent, contracted the virus.

The study “found no evidence of children infecting teachers” and suggested that coronavirus spread in schools is very limited.

• A study published in April found that a 9-year-old who attended three different schools and a skiing class while infected with coronavirus and showing symptoms didn’t infect anyone.

“The fact that an infected child did not transmit the disease despite close interactions within schools suggests potential different transmission dynamics in children,” the study concluded.

“It would be almost unheard of for an adult to be exposed to that many people and not infect anyone else,” Alasdair Munro, a pediatric infectious-diseases researcher at University Hospital Southampton said according to Nature.

• Recent reports from Sweden and Germany seem to suggest similar conclusions. Sweden’s public health agency found that between February 24 and June 14, there was no measurable direct impact on the number of coronavirus cases among school-aged children in Finland, which closed schools, and Sweden, which kept schools open.

• A German study released Monday also found that the virus doesn’t spread easily in schools, and children may actually act as a “brake” on chains of infection. “It is rather the opposite,” Prof Berner told a press conference according to the Telegraph. “Children act more as a brake on infection. Not every infection that reaches them is passed on.”

A commentary published in the official peer-review journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics also concluded in July that children infrequently transmit the virus to each other or to adults.

President Donald Trump is urging schools to reopen in the fall. Teachers unions, leftist politicians and their major media allies have resisted, citing health dangers.

The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a guidance in late June urging schools to reopen for in-person learning at the start of their school years, but later softened its stance, calling on public health agencies to be in charge of those decisions, according to Politico.

Safi noted that “Some school districts have announced that they will reopen schools with a hybrid model. Seminole County in Florida, for example, will give parents the option of enrolling their students in face-to-face learning, online learning, or a mix of multiple options. Volusia County, Florida expects to give parents multiple options, and emphasizes social distancing if students return to their classrooms.

“Many school districts have decided to start the upcoming school year entirely online, as is the case with California’s two largest school districts, Los Angeles Unified and San Diego Unified.”

Meanwhile, the anti-Trump media complex “conspired to deliberately lie and mislead the public” about a comment White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany made about “science” and “schools,” Breitbart’s John Nolte noted.

During Wednesday’s White House briefing, McEnany wanted to make clear public schools must reopen in the fall and the science proves there is no reason not to open schools.

McEnany’s full quote:

The president has said, unmistakably, that he wants schools to open. And I was just in the Oval Office] talking to him about that. And when he says ‘open,’ he means, ‘open in full’ – kids being able to attend each and every day at their school.

The science should not stand in the way of this. And as Dr. Scott Atlas, and I thought this was a good quote: ‘Of course we can do it. Everyone else in the western world, our peer nations, are doing it. We are the outlier here.’ The science is very clear on this that, that, for instance, you look at the [Journal of the American Medical Association] pediatric study of 46 pediatric hospitals in North America that said the risk of critical illness from COVID is far less for children than that of seasonal flu. The science is on our side here. We encourage for localities and states to just simply follow the science. Open our schools.

Following McEnany’s statment, Nolte noted that “every fake news outlet in the country deliberately took her out of context.”

The Washington Examiner compiled a list of the media acting in lockstep not to provide the full context of McEnany’s comments:

• “The White House Press Secretary on Trump’s push to reopen schools: ‘The science should not stand in the way of this,’ ” said CNN’s Jim Acosta, conveniently omitting some fairly necessary context.

• CNN’s Ana Cabrera claimed, “WH Press Secretary: ‘When he (Trump) says open, he means open – in full – kids being able to attend each and every day at their school,’ McEnany told reporters at the press briefing. ‘The science should not stand in the way of this.’ ”

• “From the White House podium: ‘Science should not stand in the way’ of reopening schools,” CBS News White House correspondent Weijia Jiang said.

• Reporter Jim Heath, who brags in his Twitter media profile that he is a Walter Cronkite Award-winner, said, “ ‘The science should not stand in the way of this.’ You just can’t make this stuff up. 108 days until the election.”

• “ ‘The science should not stand in the way of this,’ [McEnany] says of fully re-opening schools,” said NBC News’s Josh Lederman.

• The Daily Beast claimed in its headline from the briefing, “Kayleigh McEnany: ‘Science Should Not Stand in the Way’ of Reopening Schools.”

• Tweeted CBS News, “McEnany: ‘The president has said unmistakably that he wants schools to open…When he says open, he means open and full, kids being able to attend each and every day at their school. The science should not stand in the way of this.’”

• “The White House press secretary says ‘science should not stand in the way’ of reopening schools,” the New York Times claimed in the headline to a live blog post.

• “White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on school reopenings: ‘The science should not stand in the way of this,’” said the Washington Post’s official Twitter account.

Breitbart’s Nolte noted: “This is the only power the media have left — the power to lie and deceive by way of deliberate lies meant to deliberately mislead and terrorize their own viewers and readers.

“This is the last gasp of a failed institution, an institution so corrupted and distrusted, the only method they have left to sway public opinion is by giving up their individual voice to conspire together as one to spread blatantly dishonest missives of propaganda.

“Sad and dangerous.”

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