Former FDA chief claims 25 million American children could have already had Covid

Dr Gottlieb recommends a combination of mask wearing and regular testing to ensure safe classrooms

The former head of the Food and Drug Administration says that 25 million children could have already had Covid-19 in the US.

Dr Scott Gottlieb, the commissioner of the FDA between 2017 and 2019, appeared on CBS’ Face The Nation to promote his new book ‘Uncontrolled Spread: Why COVID-19 Crushed US and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic.’

The interview began with host Major Garret asking him about how many kids had been infected with the Delta variant of the coronavirus and the amount of testing being done.

Dr Gottlieb stated the official number of cases of children reported having covid was 4.2 million before saying the true number was probably a lot higher due to a lack of testing.

Children are less likely than adults to show symptoms when they are infected and at the virus’ peak,

He told the programme: “There’s 50 million school-aged children. We’ve diagnosed, a little over four million. About eight million have been vaccinated. So the question is how many kids overall have been exposed to this virus and developed some measure of immunity?”

“It could be as high as 25 million or more when you start doing the math around that 4.2 million who are known to have been infected. We’re certainly diagnosing less than one in four cases,” Dr Gottlieb said.

“We’re doing less routine screening in children. Children get milder disease on the whole. So they don’t present to their paediatricians for testing,” he continued. “But the rate right now may be even lower with this Delta variant”.

Dr Gottlieb went on to warn about the problems posed by schools reopening without any Covid measures in place to ease the spread.

“As schools reopen, the schools could become focal points of community transmission and can become environments that aren’t safe for children if we can’t control very large outbreaks from happening in those settings,” he told the show.

Dr Gottlieb went on to recommend a combination of mask wearing and regular testing to ensure safe classrooms after the summer vacation period.