Every day, North Carolinians are getting vaccinated, bringing us closer to the end of this pandemic, and yet Republican lawmakers like Congressman Madison Cawthorn continue to side with COVID-19 and make clear they are the pro-sickness, anti-vaccine party.

Just last week, Rep. Cawthorn led a protest, to which he brought a knife, against the Johnston County school board’s vote on whether to require face masks in school. Amid increased hospitalizations in North Carolina due to the Delta variant, Cawthorn corralled hundreds of people to protest outside the Johnston County school system’s headquarters in Smithfield.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden and Governor Roy Cooper have teamed up to end the pandemic and get kids in North Carolina back to school safely. President Biden rolled out a six-pronged plan as a path out of the pandemic, including direct steps to keep schools safely open for teachers and students across the country. Governor Cooper has worked to implement the President’s plan by urging vaccination requirements in North Carolina and encouraging school districts to keep mask mandates.

“President Biden and Governor Cooper have worked to pull every lever to save lives and stop the spread of the virus. Together, they’ve worked around the clock to get more North Carolinians vaccinated, decrease hospitalizations and deaths, and keep our state’s schools and economy open. Republicans like Congressman Cawthorn, whose political futures are staked in opposition to President Biden and Governor Cooper’s efforts to defeat the virus, can’t say the same. They’re playing politics with North Carolina’s children’s lives,” said NCDP Spokesperson Ellie Dougherty.

President Biden has worked to keep schools open safely:

• The Biden-Harris administration provided $130 billion in American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds to help schools reopen, accelerate students’ academic growth, address inequities exacerbated by the pandemic, allow local school districts to implement CDC-recommended COVID-19 prevention strategies, and support student and educators’ social, emotional, and mental health needs.
• President Biden has called for additional actions to ensure all schools consistently implement science-based prevention strategies recommended by the CDC so that they can remain open for in-person learning and maintain the health and safety of all students, staff, and families.
• The Biden-Harris administration is doing whatever it takes to support the FDA’s undergoing process to evaluate a vaccine for children under the age of 12.

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