Several months ago, commentators and politicians were suggesting grandparents should die for the sake of the economy. Now, they’re offering up the kids.
President Donald Trump has been bleating about reopening schools despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, pointing to other countries that have done so as his lackeys dutifully applaud. However, as Late Night host Seth Meyers pointed out, “that’s because [those countries] suppressed their outbreak, you sadistic sack of laundry.”
“More than 130,000 have died, the country just set a record of nearly 70,000 new cases in one day, the state of Florida shattered the national record for new daily cases with over 15,000, people are lining up for hours in the scorching heat just to get tested, frontline workers are again facing potential shortages of protective equipment, patients are waiting hours in ambulances to get hospital beds, scientists are now warning of a potential wave of COVID-related brain damage, unemployment is still worse than it’s been since the Great Depression as new claims keep pouring in, nearly a third of households missed their July housing payments, as many as 28 million people are facing eviction by September, Americans are banned from travelling to Europe, and we can’t even eat Goya beans anymore,” said Meyers, counting the ways in which the U.S. is much, much worse off than the countries Trump is comparing it to.
According to Meyers, America’s complete and utter failure to handle the coronavirus pandemic has turned it into “an object of horror and humiliation across the world.” Pretending it’s in the same position as other countries would be operating on a lie, and will only make the situation worse.
“We can’t just decouple schools from the communities they’re in,” said Meyers. “If there are outbreaks everywhere, then schools are gonna have outbreaks too. Even in the best of times schools are a breeding ground for viruses.”
Meyers further blasted U.S. secretary of education Betsy DeVos for having no feasible plan for keeping children and teachers safe upon schools reopening. Instead, DeVos has soullessly parroted that “kids have to get back to school,” and suggested schools follow the example set by hospitals.
“We can’t even get protective equipment for doctors and nurses, but you want schools to operate like hospitals?” asked an incredulous Meyers. “Why not go even further and say schools should operate like astronauts?”