Wednesday, May 13, 2020

The weird things Rand Paul said about reopening schools - The Washington Post

The weird things Rand Paul said about reopening schools - The Washington Post

The weird things Sen. Rand Paul said about reopening schools


What was Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) talking about Tuesday when he was arguing with leading public health expert Anthony S. Fauci about reopening schools during the coronavirus pandemic?
Paul aggressively questioned Fauci during a hearing of the Senate Committee for Health, Education, Labor and Pensions about coronavirus-related issues. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, defended himself in his usual measured tone.
During the exchange about schools, Paul, an ophthalmologist, offered his opinion on medical details, disagreeing with many researchers on the novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 80,000 Americans in the past few months. Paul is the only senator to contract covid-19, the disease the virus causes, but has since recovered.
Paul said that U.S. schools — virtually all of which closed in the spring when the coronavirus began to spread around this country — should open in the fall, and that it would be “ridiculous” if they don’t. He challenged predictions by Fauci and other experts in infectious diseases that there will be a spike in cases when America starts to reopen.
He also raised the issue of how the disease affects children. The number of coronavirus-related deaths among children has been extremely low, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, though experts do not know why children are not affected as much as adults. A preliminary ongoing count of coronavirus deaths by the CDC shows that between Feb. 1 and May 6, four children under the age of 1 died of the coronavirus; two children between the ages of 1 and 4 died; four children between the ages of 5 and 14 died; and 48 people between the ages of 15 and 24 died. (The data did not specify how many of those 48 were 18 or under.)
Experts are investigating a dangerous inflammatory syndrome in young people that may be related to covid-19. In New York alone, at least 93 children have been diagnosed with it, and three are known to have died as a result.
“Shouldn’t we at least be discussing what the mortality of children is?” Paul asked Fauci and then said CONTINUE READING: The weird things Rand Paul said about reopening schools - The Washington Post