Surely one of the more embarrassing moments in Anderson Cooper’s career as host of his CNN nightly show was the night back in May when he brought in 17-year-old Greta Thunberg as a star interview for a CNN Town Hall — not on the climate crisis, for which Thunberg has been famously treated as an expert of sorts, but on the COVID-19 crisis.
The link between COVID-19 and climate change is a little unclear, so presumably Cooper and Town Hall co-host Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s medical expert, thought Thunberg would bring some special wisdom and insight to the virus crisis.
The only advice from Thunberg, however, was to urge everyone to “follow the science” as suggested by Cooper, who seemed to be appealing to the 17-year-old for confirmation of his views: “This is a time, it seems, that the global scientific community is so critically important and we’re really seeing how important it is to follow science.”
Thunberg took that soft hand off from Cooper as one might expect — as confirmation of her claim that we should also be following the science on climate change. “People are starting to realize that we are actually depending on science and that we need to listen to scientists and experts. And I really hope that stays,” she said, adding that she also hoped it will apply to other crises “such as the climate crisis and the environmental crisis.”
When it comes to COVID-19, however, Thunberg seemed to have missed some of the science she said we should all be following. She suggested it was misinformation to believe initial reports that COVID-19 affected only the elderly. “During any crisis it is always the most vulnerable people who are hit the hardest, and that is children,” she proclaimed.
“Yes, this does affect elderly people a lot, but we also have to remember that this is also a children’s rights crisis because children are the most vulnerable in societies. Children do get the virus and they also spread it.”
The actual science shows, as we all now know, that children are not the hardest hit, nor are they the most vulnerable. Children are in “extremely low risk” of getting the disease and when they do get it they are more likely to be asymptomatic. Few have died.
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