President Trump said Friday that schools should reopen in the fall but without teachers who are older or otherwise at high risk from the deadly coronavirus.
He said the country must reopen and can do it with precautions, such as keeping the elderly at home, to protect the relatively “tiny percentage” of people who are most vulnerable to the virus.
“I don’t think that you should have 70-year-old teachers back yet. They should wait until everything is gone,” Mr. Trump said at a Rose Garden press conference. “I don’t think you should have a professor who is 65 and has diabetes or has a bad heart back necessarily or someone who is older than that.”
Getting the country back to work without older Americans is not a far-fetched proposal.
The American Federation of Teachers, which is rarely on the same page as Mr. Trump, made a similar recommendation to keep out at-risk teachers when schools reopen.
“COVID-19 disproportionately affects people 65 and older and those with underlying chronic health conditions,” the teachers’ union said in its 21-page plan for reopening schools. “Reopening plans should consider providing these workers with the option to deliver instruction remotely while students are in the building, with students under the supervision of qualified staff.”
As more states ease stay-at-home orders, schools and businesses will have to consider removing at-risk workers and other measures to protect employees.
Mr. Trump suggested weeding out older workers at a press conference where he announced an ambitious plan to speed up the development of a vaccine, hoping to have it ready by the end of the year.
However, he said the country can’t wait for a vaccine before reopening.
Mr. Trump cited the same trend as the union about who is most at risk. The president noted that the vast majority of Americans survive COVID-19 with minor or no symptoms.
“I think people have to understand that,” he said. “That’s why I think schools should be back in the fall. I think that lots of things should happen.”
In hard-hit New York, people 60 and older account for 85% of the deaths. People 70 and older account for 65%, according to the state health department.
In Virginia, people over 60 are 91% of the deaths and people over 80 are 53% of the deaths, according to state health data.
The president said he remains concerned about every death from COVID-19, an acute respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus, and the potential of its continued spread through the population.
So far, more than 86,0000 deaths in the U.S. and more than 300,000 deaths worldwide are attributed to COVID-19.
Mr. Trump said he also worries about the human misery caused by the unprecedented economic shutdown to stop the spread of the virus, which resulted in an economic downturn on par with the Great Depression, including more than 33 million Americans out of work.
“I’m concerned about everything. And I’m also concerned about our country,” Mr. Trump said when a reporter asked about the virus spreading if schools reopen. “Our country has to get back.”
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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