‘Harmful Covid-19 misinformation’: Facebook scrubs Trump post stating children ‘virtually immune’ to coronavirus

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 poses 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.

“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 pre-existing and co-morbid conditions.

Later on Wednesday, a Twitter representative said the account of President Trump’s 2020 campaign team would be barred from posting until it removed a tweet featuring the same clip, which was later shared by Trump’s personal handle. Like the Facebook rep, Twitter spokeswoman Liz Kelley said the post violated the site’s rules on “Covid-19 misinformation.” The video has since been deleted.

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