Домой United States USA — Science Always polarizing on schools, Betsy DeVos brushes off coronavirus risks

Always polarizing on schools, Betsy DeVos brushes off coronavirus risks

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Education Secretary Betsy DeVos made it clear during a CNN interview Sunday that the Trump administration still has no plan to secure the safe return of students to school this fall.
She offered no reassurances about how teachers would be protected, even though a new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that nearly a quarter of them have underlying conditions or are of an age that places them in the highest risk category for serious coronavirus complications.
Overall, DeVos described the Department of Education’s role as something akin to that of a virus consultant, one willing to meet with school districts to help them map out individualized plans as needed.
«Kids need to be back in school, and school leaders across the country need to be making plans to do just that,» DeVos said, swatting away concerns about the deadly virus as though it were just a common nuisance. «There is going to be the exception to the rule. But the rule should be that kids go back to school this fall. And where there are little flare-ups or hotspots, that can be dealt with on a school-by-school or a case-by-case basis.»
The description of «little flare-ups» was an almost comical description of the way in which Covid-19 is currently ravaging communities across the United States, once again demonstrating the Trump administration’s disconnect from reality.
The nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has warned that the US will soon reach 100,000 cases in a single day, a deadly new milestone. And on Sunday, Florida health officials reported 15,300 new coronavirus cases — shattering the record for the highest number of new cases in a single day in any state across the United States — according to data from John Hopkins University. Florida’s positivity rate currently stands at 19.6%.
DeVos, a billionaire who was a top donor to Trump’s 2016 campaign, has long been a lightning-rod figure in the Trump administration, reviled by progressives who have accused her of trying to privatize education and a heroine of school voucher proponents, because of her many years bankrolling school choice efforts that opponents say would draw money away from public education.

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