On Fox and Friends this morning, Trump said schools should fully reopen, even though he doesn’t have a plan to ensure it is done safely, because the coronavirus “will go away like things go away” and children are “almost immune to this disease.” That’s false:

Trump said schools should reopen because coronavirus “will go away like things go away” and children are “almost immune from this disease.”

TRUMP: “This thing’s going away. It will go away like things go away.”

TRUMP: “Children are almost, and I would almost say definitely, but almost immune from this disease.”

But the coronavirus does pose risks for children and their families, and the more we learn, the clearer it becomes how risky fully reopening schools would be.

Axios: “There’s not much good news about kids and coronavirus”

Axios: “The more we learn about kids and the coronavirus, the riskier reopening schools for in-person learning appears to be, at least in areas with high caseloads.”

Numerous studies have shown that children are susceptible to infection and can spread the coronavirus at least as well as adults do. 

New York Times: “A large new study from South Korea offers an answer: Children younger than 10 transmit to others much less often than adults do, but the risk is not zero. And those between the ages of 10 and 19 can spread the virus at least as well as adults do.”

Washington Post: “A new report suggests that children of all ages are susceptible to coronavirus infection and may also spread it to others — a finding likely to intensify an already fraught discussion about the risks of sending children back to school this fall. The analysis, released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, details an outbreak at a sleep-away camp in Georgia last month in which 260 children and staffers — more than three-quarters of the 344 tested — contracted the virus less than a week after spending time together in close quarters.”

The American people know the risk of fully reopening schools without a plan. New polling shows that opposition to reopening schools at the end of summer is rising.