Top U.S. Medical Experts Confirm the Need for Children to Return to School in Select Coronavirus Committee

Statement

Today in a hearing entitled "The Urgent Need for a National Plan to Contain the Coronavirus" in the Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis, Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO-03) questioned Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci about the unintended consequences of the coronavirus pandemic and the urgent need to get American students back to school this fall.

Rep. Luetkemeyer: "I have said this almost every hearing: we need to make sure we are looking at both sides of this. We are targeting our approach to take care of those with COVID, but we also need to make sure we're looking at the severe unintended consequences like substance abuse, domestic violence, and child abuse… that's not being reported because a lot of it's reported by teachers."

Dr. Redfield: "I don't think I can emphasize it enough. As the Director of the Centers of Disease Control -- the leading public health agency in the world -- it is in the public health's interest of these K-12 students to get these schools back open for face-to-face learning."

Dr. Fauci: "I think a that default position… would try to as best as we possibly can in the context of the safety of the children and the teachers, to open the schools, because of the negative consequences from the psychological standpoint as well as the downstream unintended consequences on families."

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