 "Despite Covid-19, Trump to 'pressure' officials to reopen schools by Sep")
US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that his administration will put pressure on state officials to reopen schools in the fall despite the novel coronavirus pandemic.
"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," Trump said during a round-table discussion at the White House.
Earlier on Tuesday, the White House said the Trump administration is concerned about the negative impact school closures may have on child and adolescent development, especially children in under-served communities.
Some US medical experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci have previously suggested that some schools open cautiously while others located in areas where the novel coronavirus is not contained should remain closed.
However, Trump - and medical experts - said via Twitter on Tuesday that the novel coronavirus death rate in the United States has plunged tenfold since its peak during the pandemic and the country now has the lowest mortality rate in the world. Trump blamed what he called the fake news media for not reporting "the most important facts" - the death rate relative to the number of infections.
The United States has reported nearly 3 million novel coronavirus cases and more than 130,900 virus-related deaths, according to the latest data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.