Vice President Pence said Tuesday that, if they were still school-aged, he “wouldn’t hesitate” to send his kids back to in-person classes despite rising numbers of coronavirus cases.
“We know to open up America again we need to open up America’s schools, but it’s also right on the facts,” Pence said during a press briefing in South Carolina.
The vice president said the overall risk for children contracting COVID-19 is low, adding there are “real costs” to students not being in schools this fall.
The second lady, Karen Pence, is a part-time art teacher at a Christian elementary school in Virginia and was present during Tuesday’s meeting to bring her perspective on how teaching might work when some classrooms resume sessions this fall.
Instead of teaching in her own class, the second lady said she would wheel a cart “from room to room” to keep children separated and safer.
“They have their own supplies. I don’t set out supplies this year,” Karen Pence said. “So there are ways that we can make it safe for our kids.”
Mike Pence said Tuesday that while the rise in cases across the Sun Belt “is serious,” the administration’s response — including conducting nearly 50 million tests nationwide and constructing over a hundred thousand ventilators, as well as new therapeutics being considered by the Food and Drug Administration — puts the region in “a much better place” compared to the early months of the pandemic.
The vice president lauded South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R), saying he is “100 percent right in making the decision to get our kids back in the classroom here in South Carolina.”
McMaster had previously called on state Education Superintendent Molly Spearman to deny any local plans that do not include in-person classrooms this fall.