THREAD: Trump’s pandemic incompetence & mismanagement spreads to schools reopening. @ProjectLincoln.

Trump is going to hold states’ funding hostage unless they reopen schools. He has made public health political and now he’s making education political.

This is the same unhinged INCOMPETENCE that Trump embraced when he pushed for states to reopen before they had adequate testing, tracing, and PPE -- and look where we are now.

Trump says he's following CDC guidelines while also altering those guidelines b/c they’re “too tough.” Trump won't devote resources to keep our children & educators safe. Instead he's trying to convince us the virus is a cold & will just “sort of disappear.” Nobody believes this

Everyone wants schools to reopen. Everyone wants to go back to a sense of normalcy. But because Trump has so incredulously failed to create any contact tracing program or ramp up testing, the surge in Covid cases and community spread is making this all but impossible.

Politics should not lead public health policy when we have already lost over 140,000 Americans. This president is now forcing local school districts to choose between losing their funding and jobs to stay safe, and schools reopening with completely inadequate safety measures.

*More than 25% of the national public school teaching force is over 50 years old -- Trump does not believe that the lives of those that educate our children are worth protecting.

*64 million Americans live in multigenerational homes, and if children contract and bring the virus home to parents and grandparents, they are in very real danger of dying. The elderly have 12% mortality when infected with Covid.

*Nearly 17,000 of those infected in Florida are children -- 31% of tested Florida children are Covid positive.
*X-rays show damage to children’s lungs now, but long-term health consequences are still unknown.

*FL’s Governor Desantis issued an executive order for schools to reopen in August, five days a week at full capacity.
*The American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, and the Florida Education Association are suing the governor over his executive order

*In Arizona, Governor Ducey is denying school board requests to delay opening school until October -- Ducey delayed opening until August 17th.
*Ducey is going to hold the school funds hostage unless they reopen in-person in the midst of the pandemic.

*3 Arizona teachers shared a classroom for four days in June and contracted the virus -- killing one of those teachers.

If the president of the United States can’t follow the most basic instructions & guidance to wear a mask, or implement enough tests to say when it’s safe for our kids to go back to school, then how can we tell our kids they’re going to be fine to go back w/o blatantly lying?

Parents should NEVER have been forced into this position -- forced to choose between sacrificing the education of their children & the health of their family.

Every mayor, school board, teacher & parent has been left on their own to try & work this out because @realDonaldTrump explicitly decided to put the burden on THEM.

Schools cannot fix the virus, but Trump could have -- months ago. Now, we’re all put in an untenable situation b/c of this president’s criminal incompetence.

This did not have to happen.