Post misleads on Dr. Oz comments on COVID-19 child deaths | Fact check

A Nov. 20 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) by liberal commentator Brian Tyler Cohen makes a claim about Dr. Mehmet Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon, television personality and President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
“Remember, it was Dr. Oz who said during Covid that it was acceptable for 2-3% of American children to die,” reads the post, which was originally shared by commentator Tristan Snell. “Trump now wants him in charge of Medicare. Seniors should be afraid – VERY afraid.”
The Facebook post was shared more than 1,500 times in two weeks.
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The implied claim is wrong. This post mischaracterizes an ambiguous comment by Oz that he later called a misstatement. It was an attempt to reference a study that said models found closing schools during the pandemic would prevent 2-4% of deaths across all age groups, not that opening would have killed that percentage of children. Oz didn’t say such a number would be “acceptable.”
The post focuses on a remark Oz made during an April 14, 2020, interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity as part of a discussion on how to safely reopen from the lockdowns early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Oz said in part:
“Let’s start with things that are really critical to the nation, where we think we might be able to open without getting into a lot of trouble. I tell you, schools are a very appetizing opportunity. I just saw a nice piece in The Lancet arguing that the opening of schools may only cost us 2 to 3% in terms of total mortality.”
Oz continued by saying, “And you know that’s … any life is a life lost, but to get every child back into a school where they’re safely being educated, being fed and making the most of their lives with a theoretical risk in the backside … It might be a tradeoff some folks would consider.”
The comments, while not phrased clearly, were not an endorsement of sending children back to school with the expectation that at least one in 50 would likely die, nor did he explicitly endorse the idea of reopening schools. His full comments make clear that the remark about the 2 to 3% was in reference to “total mortality,” not just school-age children.
Despite this, Oz later said he misspoke and clarified his points in an April 16, 2020, video he shared on what was then Twitter. Here is what he said in the video:
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The paper Oz appears to reference was first published on April 6, 2020, in The Lancet and examined how effective school closings were at reducing the spread of viruses. That review estimated school closings alone would have prevented 2% to 4% of COVID-19 deaths in the entire population. It also said it would be far more effective to combine closings with isolating people who test positive.
That paper was based in part on a March 2020 preprint study on how effective social distancing, school closings and other strategies had been, noting that the effects were amplified when multiple forms of social distancing were used concurrently.
USA TODAY reached out to the users who shared the claim for comment but did not immediately receive any responses.
Snopes also debunked the claim.
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