Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich slammed teachers unions across the United States over their unwillingness to agree to return teachers to schools despite mounting evidence that children are at low risk for spreading the coronavirus.
“The Teachers Unions are the Chinese Communists best ally in ensuring that American students will fall further and further behind and poor children will remain trapped in poverty,” Gingrich tweeted Tuesday.
The Teachers Unions are the Chinese Communists best ally in ensuring that American students will fall further and further behind and poor children will remain trapped in poverty
— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) February 16, 2021
Gingrich’s comments come as teachers unions across the country have refused to open up schools to students due to fear of the coronavirus.
That position has been challenged by several studies, as well as comments from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky.
“I want to be clear. There is increasing data to support that schools can safely reopen and that safe reopening does not suggest teachers need to be vaccinated,” Walensky said earlier this month before the White House walked back the comment.
Walensky previously said that “accumulating data suggests school settings do not result in rapid spread of COVID-19 when mitigation measures are followed.”
A CDC study released in January concluded, “these findings suggest that, with proper mitigation strategies, K–12 schools might be capable of opening for in-person learning with minimal in-school transmission of SARS-CoV-2.”
Several other studies have shown that children are at very little risk of spreading the coronavirus, including a study in North Carolina last month that found an “extremely limited” rate of coronavirus transmission among children and no transmission from children to adults.
One study conducted in Germany last year concluded that children could serve as a “brake” on the spread of the virus.
