During a weekend interview promoting her campaign for Illinois’ 6th Congressional District, Jeanne Ives continued to spread misinformation on COVID-19, falsely stating as “a fact” that “children are not susceptible to” the virus and seemingly downplaying the death of a child in Illinois.
This isn’t the first time Ives has used her platform to mislead the public on COVID-19. Ives is making it a focal point of her campaign to call for reopening summer youth sports leagues, despite the fact that Illinois was still seeing an increase in cases that same day.
“Given Jeanne Ives’ history of bombastic rhetoric, it should come as little surprise that she’s using her campaign to recklessly spread COVID-19 misinformation,” said DCCC Spokesperson Courtney Rice. “This type of rhetoric is dangerous and Illinoisans deserve better than a failed politician who exploits this pandemic for political purposes.”
IVES [19:15 mark]: What we do know about this virus is that it dissipates in the heat, it dissipates outdoors, and that children are not susceptible to it, we know that for a fact.”
HOST: Wait, I can’t let you say children are not susceptible because that’s a dangerous thing to say because there have been children who have died. So children have caught this disease. The youngest one in Illinois is 12. Children get usually a less serious form of it if they get it, but can get it. I don’t want to have medical information going out that sounds like they can’t get it because they can get it. I’m sorry.
IVES: Okay Craig, that’s fine, but that child had other issues going on. It’s sad, it’s terrible, we don’t want any children to die, but the truth is that children are also under enormous stress being cooped up under their homes in many cases. In some cases, they need this as an outlet for their mental health. […]
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