Trevor Noah on schools opening: 'Parents are stuck between a rock and a hard place'

Trevor Noah

On Tuesday’s Daily Show, Trevor Noah broke down America’s catch-22 of reopening schools with rising coronavirus case numbers in several states. The coronavirus does not generally afflict children severely, but the question is, according to Noah: “can they become adorable superspreaders who affect teachers, staff and their families back home?”

Early studies out of South Korea suggest yes – children younger than 10 spread the virus with about half the frequency of adults, but kids aged 10-19 spread it at the same rate, which is “really not good”, Noah said, although “I don’t think any of this should be surprising to anyone. Like, I’m not a scientist, but of course teenagers can spread coronavirus everywhere. Just look at how they spread rumors.”

“Clearly, if kids go back to school, there’s a good chance the virus is gonna spread even more,” Noah continued. “Which means Americans have two choices: 1) immediately devote massive resources to helping schools implement safety regimes so that kids can be protected, tested and monitored, or 2) don’t do that.”

Several states are barreling toward option two; Governor Mike Parson of Missouri, for example, said kids in his state must return to school because “if they do get Covid-19, which they will – and they will when they go to school – they’re not going to the hospitals.”

Related: Colbert on Portland: 'Just when you thought the Trump presidency couldn’t get any darker'

Parson is not wrong in that kids who contract coronavirus require hospitalization very rarely, said Noah, “but what he seems to be forgetting is that unless all these kids live in Neverland, they go home to adults. Which is not good, because you see, coronavirus is like baby shark – it can’t hurt kids, but it will destroy adults’ lives.”

Without the virus under control, he added, schools will turn into “an Amazon fulfillment center for coronavirus – it starts in a centralized location, and within a couple of days it’s personally delivered to everyone’s house.”

So “until these issues are resolved, most parents in America are stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Noah concluded. “Because what do you do? Do you keep your kids at home, teach them yourself, and eventually blow your brains out? Or do you take the risk, send them to school, and gamble with your family’s health?”

Stephen Colbert

“Trump has been so busy shanking the response to the coronavirus that he forgot about his real passion project: demonizing immigrants,” said Stephen Colbert on the Late Show. But on Tuesday, Trump went “back to the basics”, and issued an executive order barring the US census from counting undocumented immigrants.

The order is “completely unconstitutional”, said Colbert – Congress, not the president, is empowered by the constitution to carry out the “actual enumerationof the country’s population” – but that doesn’t seem to matter. “Trump doesn’t take no from the country’s constitution – he just grabs it by the preamble,” Colbert deadpanned.

“Speaking of unconstitutional,” he continued, nameless federal agents are still in Portland, Oregon, firing teargas and flash grenades at protesters after days of making unwarranted arrests of protesters in unmarked vehicles. “Or, as Trump put it, ‘We are trying to help Portland, not hurt it,’” Colbert said.

“You want to help the people of Portland? Don’t send in goons to round them up!” Colbert retorted. “You buy their organic, fair-trade macramé.”

The deployment of federal agents in Portland has engendered outrage and disbelief; earlier this week, Oregon’s governor, Kate Brown, said: “We cannot have secret police abducting people in unmarked vehicles. I can’t believe I have to say that to the president of the United States.”

“Really? You can’t believe that?” Colbert responded. “Because it’s just one of a long list of things you shouldn’t have to say to the president of the United States, like: ‘Frederick Douglass is dead,’ ‘Don’t inject bleach,’ and, ‘You can’t date your daughter.’”

Seth Meyers

And on Late Night, Seth Meyers riffed on Trump’s photo of himself wearing a mask, which he tweeted with the quote: “Many people say that it’s patriotic to wear a face mask when you can’t socially distance.”

“Oh, that’s why you finally put one on? Or is it because many people are saying they’re going to vote for Joe Biden,” Meyers retorted.

Trump also tweeted about his disastrous interview with the Fox News host Chris Wallace over the weekend, saying, “We may have set a record for doing such an interview in the heat, it was 100 degrees, making things very interesting.”

“A 100-degree temperature,” Meyers said, “or as Trump calls it: ‘healthy enough to go to school’.”

Finally, the White House announced this week that Trump will resume his daily coronavirus briefings. “Oh man, I hate it when a show comes back after a long break and I can’t remember any of the plot lines,” said Meyers, though it was easy for him to remember the main characters: Trump is “the villain”, Mike Pence is “the butler …?” and Dr Anthony Fauci is “the guy who should’ve had a spin-off by now but he’s stuck here and only has like three lines an episode”.