Fox News medical expert: “I can’t interpret” what Trump meant when he said children are immune from coronavirus
Dr. Marc Siegel also comments on Trump: “He trusts his experts, but he also goes day-to-day with that.”
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From the August 6, 2020, edition of Fox News’ Bill Hemmer Reports
JOHN ROBERTS (GUEST ANCHOR): Dr. Siegel, you heard the president say yesterday that children are, quote, “almost immune.” What's the real deal?
DR. MARC SIEGEL (FOX NEWS MEDICAL CONTRIBUTOR): Well, John, I can't interpret what he meant by that, but I'll tell you this. Children under the age of five that get COVID-19 are actually being found in a study last week to have more of the virus in their noses than adults do. But I think the issue is about immunity. And one of the explanations, John, for why kids may have milder cases overall — much milder cases, or asymptomatic cases — is that they may have some cross-immunity that they're bringing from other coronaviruses that they're exposed to. That's one theory. Another theory is that children have stronger immune systems.
So — but that doesn't mean they can't get COVID-19. It doesn't mean they can't spread COVID-19. The older the children get, the easier it is for them to spread it to adults, based on studies around the world.
ROBERTS: You know, Dr. Siegel, you have talked to the president several times since this whole crisis started. He is frequently at odds or contradicts members of his Coronavirus Task Force. Do you get the sense that the president trusts his experts — or trusts his gut?
SIEGEL: I think both. John, that's a tough question. He trusts his experts, but he also goes day-to-day with that. He has some really top experts there.
ROBERTS: Sure.
SIEGEL: You know, he is not afraid to disagree with one of his experts, and he's not afraid to look at it from a more economic point of view, or from an issue of collateral damage. You know, he looks at it from many different ways at once. But it's — it would be a mistake to think, “Oh, he's angry at this expert, he's not listening to them anymore.” I think that they all continue to weigh in. Deborah Birx is a really good example of that, John. You know he had a tiff with her the other day.
ROBERTS: Yeah.
SIEGEL: But when I was down there, I heard that he gets reports from her all the time.