Trump administration

European Teachers, Parents Challenge Trump Claim on Their Schools Reopening

Comparing the U.S. response to that of Denmark was “wrong,” one parent said

Students sit in a classroom at a primary school in Eichenau, southern Germany, on June 16, 2020 amid the novel coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. - The pupils sit at a distance from each other and attend school in smaller classes until the summer holidays due to the pandemic.
Christof Stache/AFP via Getty Images

Parents, teachers and union officials in Germany and Scandinavian countries have challenged President Donald Trump’s suggestion that schools in those nations were “open with no problems.”

Comparing the U.S. response to that of Denmark was “wrong,” Niels Larsen, a musician and the father of three school children in the capital Copenhagen, told NBC News on Thursday, adding that the way the two countries had approached the coronavirus pandemic was “quite different.”

“We took the initial hit to our economy and the hard blows, and now we are seeing the benefits with things like the reopening of schools, so that’s where the comparison is wrong,” he said by telephone.

For more on this story, go to NBC News.

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