Gov. Tim Walz said at a press conference last week that he rejects the idea that “very few children get sick” from COVID-19.
“We hear the statistics that very few children get sick. First and foremost, I dismiss that. You heard it: we have 300 kids in the hospital that are really sick,” Walz said while promoting his child vaccination plan.
The CDC itself estimates that as many as half of pediatric cases are asymptomatic, and Walz’s Department of Health commissioner acknowledged that “serious illness is rare” in children.
“While it’s become much more prevalent — we’ve had 45,000 pediatric cases just since July in Minnesota alone — thankfully, the percentage of cases that are severe is quite low,” said Commissioner Jan Malcolm.
Just 0.1% of people under the age of 20 in Minnesota have been hospitalized with COVID-19, according to COVID Clarity, a service run by an Ivy-League educated statistician in Minnesota. Four people under the age of 20 have died of COVID-19 in Minnesota out of 168,969 total cases in that age group. That means about 0.002% of COVID-19 cases among people under 20 have resulted in death.
"We hear the statistics that very few children get sick. First and foremost I dismiss that." –@GovTimWalz
Truth doesn't vanish when you plug your ears & close your eyes.
According to MDH, 0.1% of kids <20 in MN have been hospitalized with covid. 4 out of 1.4 million have died.
— Clarity (@covid_clarity) November 4, 2021
More kids have been murdered this year in Minneapolis than have died of COVID-19 since the very beginning of the pandemic.
Additionally, Walz’s claim that there are 300 “really sick” kids in the hospital appears to be false, according to COVID Clarity. On average, 28 kids have been admitted to the hospital each week over the past month.
"We have 300 kids in the hospital that are really sick," @GovTimWalz said Wednesday.
This is a lie.
According to MDH's own data, 28 kids have been admitted to the hospital each week on average over the past month.
MDH link: https://t.co/uPL45hO0KJ pic.twitter.com/0T04ZbKmgW
— Clarity (@covid_clarity) November 5, 2021
“The 28 per week average is taken from the weekly reports from Oct. 7 and Nov. 5,” COVID Clarity explained to Alpha News. “Ages under 20 cumulative hospitalizations went from 1359 to 1470 over those four weeks, up 111 total or an average of 28 per week.”
Kevin Roche, a veteran of the health care industry, recently told Alpha News that Minnesota officials are in the habit of “twisting data to support the message.”
“They think about the message they want first and then they put out data in a way that is designed to support that message,” he said. “That’s frankly just a despicable practice. It’s disrespectful of the citizenry, and the state of Minnesota clearly does that.”
Anthony Gockowski
Anthony Gockowski is Editor-in-Chief of Alpha News. He previously worked as an editor for The Minnesota Sun and Campus Reform, and wrote for the Daily Caller.
