Shocking New Study Upends Any Notion of Opening Schools: Even Children Younger Than Five May Carry High Levels of the Coronavirus, up to 100 Times as Much as Adults. A BuzzFlash Editor's Commentary
August 1, 2020
This is no time to open schools, given the growing statistics of children and teenage infection amidst the pandemic surge. (Bob_Dmyt)
MARK KARLIN, BUZZFLASH COMMENTARY
According to a July 31 article in The Chicago Tribune (originally published in The NYT), a just-released Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) study found that children may carry high levels of the Coronavirus up to 100 times as much as adults. The startling finding comes at a time that Donald Trump and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos are trying to gaslight the American public to reopen public schools and make students and teachers kindling wood for another surge in the Coronavirus.
According to an article in the Washington Post, Trump is quoted as saying on July 30:
“I do say again, young people are almost immune to this disease. The younger the better,” President Trump said Thursday during a White House briefing. “They’re stronger. They have a stronger immune system.”
These are not the words of a man with medical knowledge; they are the delusional pronouncements of a merchant of death.
Indeed, the CDC, which just a few days ago succumbed to the political pressure of the Trump White House and announced that schools were safe to open, has now, just a short time later, come to the inevitable recognition of what the scientific data reveals: “A new [CDC] report suggests that children of all ages are susceptible to coronavirus infection and may also spread it to others….”
BuzzFlash has written two recent commentaries on actual statistics from the most pro-Trump pandemic raging Red States that indicate widespread presence of the Coronavirus among young people, including infants, 1-10 year olds and teenagers. There are many examples of transmission between adults and children at summer camps, and even at daycare centers. We do know that more than 1300 confirmed infections occurred in Texas child care centers. That includes 441 children. The numbers have risen as Texas, one of the states exploding with Coronavirus, has experienced increasing infection.
In addition, many summer camps experienced large cluster outbreaks among students and camp counselors. The Daily Beast reported on July 31 that a Georgia overnight camp opened on June 21 and closed on June 27 because 76 percent of the campers who were tested for the Coronavirus came back positive. Other campers, with a median age of 12, still remain to be tested, which means the positivity rate may still be higher.
The Daily Beast article states that,
As state officials across the country scramble to solidify plans to reopen schools in the fall, a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzing the transmission rate at a Georgia overnight camp suggests that the spread of the coronavirus among students is inevitable.
Yet, the mainstream corporate media is still allowing Trump and DeVos a platform for deadly public health blustering to open schools. This is the same strategy Trump used to drive the “reopening” of the economy that led to a Coronavirus wildfire. If this were the military, Trump would have already been stripped of his rank and court-martialed. As for Betsy DeVos, she should be forced to serve lunch at one of the schools foolish enough to restart in-person teaching.
Recently, BuzzFlash detailed in two commentaries (and more information about the Coronavirus at the bottom of this page) that any opening of schools, including colleges, cannot be done before COVID-19 is contained. One BuzzFlash commentary is entitled, Trump's Sociopathic Magical Thinking Will Ignite a Horrific Catastrophe if Schools Reopen In-Person. The other commentary that cites data showing that children of all ages can be infected, harmed, suffer horrific side-effects and even die is Corporate Mainstream Media Must Acknowledge Trump's Sociopathology, Save American Lives and Protect Our Children.
However, the JAMA study, as reported in The Chicago Tribune, heightens concerns even further about how badly Trump and DeVos can inflame an already raging pandemic. As the Tribune reports,
Still, experts were alarmed to learn that young children may carry significant amounts of the coronavirus.
“I’ve heard lots of people saying, ‘Well, kids aren’t susceptible; kids don’t get infected.’ And this clearly shows that’s not true,” said Stacey Schultz-Cherry, a virologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. “I think this is an important, really important, first step in understanding the role that kids are playing in transmission….”
“It definitely shows that kids do have levels of virus similar to and maybe even higher than adults,” Heald-Sargent said. “It wouldn’t be surprising if they were able to shed” the virus and spread it to others.
The results are consistent with those from a German study of 47 infected children between the ages of 1 and 11, which showed that children who did not have symptoms had viral loads as high as adults, or higher. And a recent study from France found that asymptomatic children had CT values similar to those of children with symptoms.
CT is a rating tool for detecting virus load. The lower the CT score, the higher the virus load.
It should be emphasized that the research was done on children and adults with only “mild to moderate” symptoms of the Coronavirus, not more severe cases.
The Tribune article concludes:
Some experts have suggested that children may transmit less virus because of their smaller lung capacity, height or other physical aspects.
Morrison [a University of California Virologist] dismissed those suggestions. The virus is shed from the upper respiratory tract, not the lungs, she noted.
“We are going to be reopening day care and elementary schools,” she said. If these results hold up, “then, yeah, I’d be worried.”
For Coronavirus ravaged states such as Florida, Texas and Arizona, the opening of schools is politically weaponized manslaughter.
To those who argue that this does not prove children are contagious, then how are they getting infected in large clusters at camps, at day care centers, and, as pointed out in a BuzzFlash commentary in a massive transmission at recklessly opened Israeli schools? How come Florida has had 31,150 confirmed cases of children infected as of July 24, before school has even opened? How come Dallas County alone had 1450 cases of confirmed COVID-19 infection in children, 29 hospitalized and one dead, just in the first three weeks of July?
Normalizing the ravings of a monstrous mad man and a Secretary of Education dedicated to dismantling the public school system are leading us to the precipice of another catastrophe that will tragically touch every family in America, even as it catches fire amidst an already pandemic raging out of control.
More Recent Relevant BuzzFlash Editor’s Commentaries:
Trump's Sociopathic Magical Thinking Will Ignite a Horrific Catastrophe if Schools Reopen In-Person
Trump Intentionally Let the Coronavirus "Wash Over" America, a Failure by Design
Tulsa COVID-19 Case Infection Hits New High as Trump Will Facilitate Transmission at Saturday Rally
Follow BuzzFlash on @twitter
Continue the conversation at the BuzzFlash Nation group on Facebook.s