Facebook has removed a post from US President Donald Trump’s personal page – a clip from a recent interview in which he suggested Covid-19 posed little risk to children – stating he had made “false claims” about the virus.
“This video includes false claims that a group of people is immune from Covid-19 which is a violation of our policies around harmful Covid misinformation,” Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement on Wednesday.
In the interview segment, which aired on Fox on Wednesday morning, Trump called for a reopening of schools around the country, arguing that Covid-19 would soon “go away” and that children were much less vulnerable to the illness.
A Facebook spokesperson just confirmed to me that this is the first post by Trump that the company has removed for coronavirus misinformation. https://t.co/JEvi0H1NeN
“My view is that schools should be open,” Trump said. “If you look at children, children are almost – and I would almost say definitely – but almost immune to this disease… They have much stronger immune systems than [adults] do somehow for this. They don’t have a problem.”
I’ve watched some doctors say they’re totally immune. I don’t know, I hate to use the word ‘totally,’ because the news will say ‘oh, he used the word totally and he shouldn’t have used that word’ – but the fact is they are virtually immune.
While it is generally accepted among medical experts that children are less likely to experience severe Covid-19 symptoms, they are still at risk of contracting it and a number of young patients have succumbed to the illness, some with preexisting and co-morbid conditions.
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