Coronavirus: Trump deepens rift with top doctor Fauci as schools become flashpoint
- Trump slams Fauci’s coronavirus testimony: ‘He wants to play all sides’
- Fauci warned that opening too early could allow virus to resume spreading
President Donald Trump called on governors across the United States to work to reopen schools that were closed because of the coronavirus, pointedly taking issue with Dr Anthony Fauci’s caution against moving too quickly in sending students back to class.
The president accused Fauci of wanting “to play all sides of the equation”, a comment that suggested he is tiring of the nation’s top infectious disease expert.
“I think they should open the schools, absolutely. I think they should,” Trump told reporters at the White House, echoing comments he had made in a television interview. “Our country’s got to get back and it’s got to get back as soon as possible. And I don’t consider our country coming back if the schools are closed.”
“We don’t know everything about this virus and we really better be pretty careful, particularly when it comes to children,” Fauci told the committee. At one point, he told members that “the idea of having treatments available or a vaccine to facilitate the re-entry of students into the fall term would be something that would be a bit of a bridge too far”.
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Fauci later clarified that he was not implying students should be barred from returning to class until a Covid-19 vaccine was developed. But his comments were nonetheless seized on by conservative commentators, as well as Republican Senator Rand Paul, who called the notion “kind of ridiculous”.