COVID-19: Trump to 'pressure' officials to reopen schools in fall despite increasing cases

US President Donald Trump has stated that he will pressure state officials into reopening schools in the US despite the coronavirus pandemic. According to reports, this move was considered because the Trump administration believes that school closures are having or have already had a negative impact on the child and adolescent development.

'Will put a lot of pressure': Trump

During a round-table discussion Trump said that "We're very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools, to get them open... We're going to be putting a lot of pressure to open the schools in the fall".  But many health experts have continued to advise against the opening of schools in the fall like the US President wants. Most notable of the experts who is against the President’s plan is Dr Anthony Fauci who has suggested that at first, only some schools should reopen and in areas where the coronavirus has not been contained, schools there should remain closed.

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In response to critics, Donald Trump via Twitter has said that US deaths have reduced significantly and that the ‘fake news media’ does not want to reports the facts. Trump also claimed that the majority of the criticism is coming from Democrats who do not wish to reopen schools in the fall due to political reasons.

The United States has reported 2,994,223 positive coronavirus cases according to the John Hopkins Coronavirus resource Centre, the US is presently the epicentre of the virus in the world and has the greatest number of cases in the world. The US has a death toll of 131,626.

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Coronavirus pandemic turned into a political weapon

The campaigns of US President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden for the upcoming presidential elections have started to use coronavirus pandemic to shape results. Trump has been facing criticism for his handling of coronavirus outbreak in the United States which has claimed over 130,000 lives so far. Republican leaders have tried to deflect criticism away from Trump regarding the handling of the virus by focusing on the recovering economy and blaming China for creating the global health disaster.

(Input Credit ANI)