President Trump’s embattled coronavirus adviser, Dr. Scott Atlas, isn’t backing down under intense criticism that his guidance runs counter to established science.
He says his views have been distorted in media and too many people in the public eye have been “instilling fear” instead of addressing the damage caused by lockdowns on schoolchildren and workers who are less vulnerable to COVID-19.
“We know the harms are tremendous to closing schools and businesses. I don’t know why that is not front and center. That is the most important reason why I’m here,” he told The Washington Times.
He said the Trump administration has taken aggressive steps to shield nursing homes, a “tinderbox” for COVID-19, and has given Americans the protective equipment and know-how to make their own decisions about leaving their homes.
“We know who dies from this virus. It’s not equally impactful on different parts of society. Children have extremely low risk,” he said. “We also realize that small businesses have especially been hurt, including restaurants, travel, hotels and regular jobs where people do not have the luxury of working from home.”
His aggressive push to reopen the schools and businesses is resonating with Mr. Trump, who wants the country to fully reopen, but runs counter to much of the 24-hour news cycle and cautious approach endorsed by some governors and prominent federal officials. They are tallying cases and leaving restrictions in place for bars and other businesses, fearing the infection will reach the vulnerable.
Dr. Atlas, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, said the focus on cases and “stopping COVID-19 at all costs” glosses over the societal fallout from students who have been harmed by distance learning, low-income workers who don’t have the luxury of sipping coffee at home with their laptops and others hit by lockdowns.
Dr. Atlas joined the White House in a temporary capacity this summer and has been a go-to man for the president. He has replaced the likes of Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx as primary wingman in the briefing room. He speaks to Mr. Trump frequently and has an office at the White House.
Dr. Atlas said he may not be a virologist but his long background in medicine, health care policy and direct lines of communication to top academics position him to translate the medical literature on COVID-19 into plain English and policy for the president, including ways to avoid the damaging consequences of lockdowns.
“That’s the challenge, and that challenge has not been given the appropriate consideration by the public health officials who somehow think they have unique expertise,” he said. “I cannot control what other people say. I am sitting here doing this for one reason: to help the president do the best job he can, to save lives and get Americans back on their feet.”
His prominent role has led to public disagreements.
An NBC News report said Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, could be overheard telling someone on the phone during a recent flight that Dr. Atlas is misleading the president on issues such as the importance of wearing masks.
Dr. Atlas opposes mask mandates and said public officials are guilty of “erratic and inconsistent” advice on the use of face coverings. But he said he agrees with the president’s position that it is “common sense, reasonable policy” to wear a mask when you cannot socially distance, especially if you are a high-risk person or around high-risk people.
Dr. Atlas also broke with Dr. Redfield over the share of Americans who likely remain susceptible to the virus. The director told senators that about 90% likely remain vulnerable, based on antibody tests, but Dr. Atlas said the CDC director used older data and didn’t take into account potential forms of immunity beyond antibodies.
Dr. Atlas said the development of “population immunity” among people who have contracted and cleared the virus may be slowing its spread in places with widespread transmission.
His push to reopen society and highlight naturally developed immunity is leading to a repeated charge: that he wants to let the coronavirus rip to develop widespread “herd immunity” instead of trying to control the virus while drugmakers develop a vaccine.
The doctor rejects the claim.
“That is not the president’s strategy,” he said. “I have always advised [the] extreme protection of high-risk people. I have also understood the phenomenon, the virology, of population immunity.”
The criticism hasn’t disappeared, however. The doctor has rejected “herd immunity” from the White House podium, and medical faculty at Stanford University, his main employer, has raised doubts in an open letter.
“I think it’s sad when university professors allow their own political beliefs to cloud their judgment,” Dr. Atlas said. “There is a false narrative that the president or me are not looking at the science. It’s the exact opposite.”
The White House, meanwhile, said the president “consults with many experts both inside and outside of the federal government, who sometimes disagree with one another.”
“All of the medical experts in the administration are working together around the clock to carry out the president’s No. 1 priority: protecting the health and safety of the American people and defeating this virus from China,” White House deputy press secretary Sarah A. Matthews said.
The coronavirus was discovered in Wuhan, China, in December. It spread around the globe, upending normal life and devastating economies as countries pursued a variety of lockdown strategies to keep people apart and slow the transmission of the virus.
Dr. Atlas acknowledged the high death toll from COVID-19 but, like Mr. Trump, said the country is at an inflection point, with treatments improving, the case fatality rate plummeting and a vaccine around the corner.
“We’re improving here. There’s no minimizing the tragedy of 200,000-plus [deaths], but things are going better now,” he said.
Dr. Atlas said the nation must do three things in its battle with the coronavirus: protect the vulnerable, prevent hospital overcrowding, and open schools while ending restrictions that are “closing people out of their jobs.”
“It’s literally killing people. It’s destroying families,” he said of lockdowns. “We’re doing things like interfering with our children’s development.”
He said students who need eyeglasses or hearing aids often find out from being in the classroom, and school officials are often the ones who detect and report abuse in the home. The doctor also said K-12 teachers tend to be younger than 41, putting them at less risk, as New York City and other big districts wrestle with reopening their schools.
“We are the only country of our Western peer nations that is so hysterical we are not opening schools,” Dr. Atlas said.
As Mr. Trump pushes to open classrooms and restart college football, the administration is dispatching 150 million rapid coronavirus tests it bought last month from Abbott Laboratories. About 100 million of the tests will go to governors so teachers and critical workers can be screened, and 50 million will be dedicated to protecting the vulnerable at historically Black colleges and universities, assisted-living facilities and nursing homes.
The president is “doubling down on the protection of nursing homes,” said Dr. Atlas, who pointed to the concentration of older people with underlying conditions in these settings.
“You have to really lock down on that,” he said. “It’s improper, it’s destructive to lock down the healthy people.”
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Evil must be stomped on else we all become slaves.
Why hasn’t Trump rescinded his emergency orders? If I understand correctly, this is why the state governors and mayors get their ability to require all this kabuki.
I agree with opening things up and that masks are useless. Sending kids to school doesn’t seem like a good idea. Anyone that’s a parent has had to deal with their kid bringing home colds and the flu every winter.
I think I’ll pass on having my kids give me COVID. I was going to take my kids out of sucky public schools anyways. Biden said he is into masks and shutting things down so people know what they get with him.
You probably already had covid. Stop worrying. Kids need to be with kids.
According to an article I read at LRC your children under 12 have a better chance of being struck by lightening-literally-than dying from COVID. Let them live normal lives-while they can.
My great niece, HS Soph, tested positive and the only symptoms she has had are sore throat and mild fever. Has not slowed he down at all. Same thing with 4 of her team mates.
Of course, the entire team and their family members have been told to quarantine for 2 weeks.
I can’t copy the graph from this site, so you’ll have to look it up. Go here https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page
and then select “hospitalizations and death” and then select just “deaths”.
NYC’s highest death day was 599 back in April. Lately, they’ve been averaging about 3 deaths per day. Yesterday they had nine, so that made the news. They haven’t had a double-digit death day since 12 on July 28th.
That’s called herd immunity, folks. It doesn’t mean a total cessation of cases, but viral spread having slowed to a crawl. If you think (as Fauci seems to) that NYC Mayor Big Bird got people to wear masks and wash their hands better than everywhere else, you’re crazy.
If your virus model conflicts with observable reality, change your model.
It’s PRESIDENT Trump, not Mr. Trump. Subtle form of disrespect. I never heard the previous occupant of the White House called Mr. Obama.
It is not your responsibility to save me from anything, nor is it mine to save you. Especially trying to “save” me from a virus I have a 97% chance of recovering from completely. And may have already had.
And all these morons crowing about antibodies and not T cells or the body’s ability to use previous, similar disease to fight this one, is disingenuous and being done for a purpose. Not to mention the PCR test is about as useless as Biden’s grey matter.
Why would anyone take a vaccine that does god knows what to your body, that if you are lucky has a 50% efficacy rate, when the actual rate of recovery naturally is so much higher? A vaccine that if it damages you, the only thing you can do is get some kind of piddly recompense from some fund? So yeah, being crippled for the rest of your life and in a wheelchair, or so brain damaged a turnip looks smart, from a pretty much completely untested and rushed vaccine, versus either already having the stupid virus or recovering naturally sounds like a no-brainer.
And Creepy Uncle Gates is pretty obvious in his disdain for the unwashed masses, makes fairly overt comments about over-population, and has a terrible history of using poor people in Africa as a testing ground for his vaccination programs, so do you think he would be all heartbroken if this vaccine damages the reproductive systems of children? Does anyone actually believe any of the so-called “experts” CARE about your kids in least? Do you think it benefits them to have children become even more socially and intellectually stunted? I do. Do you think it benefits them to have a whole generation grow up to be terrified of being within 6 feet of anyone else lest they “kill” them? You cannot have an uprising if you can’t stand next to someone. It’s pretty hard to revolt from your heavy-handed overlords when you don’t even leave your house.
When no one remembers what it was like “before” Covid-1984 then no one can complain or compare.
When all of history is what a google search tells you, what facebook shows you, what twitter blasts you with, then who will know better? Ask Ray Bradbury, he had a pretty good take on it. Hitler knew the power of burning books. Now we don’t even have to burn them, just ban them from Amazon. After all, who even goes to a library anymore besides the homeless?
Go ahead and watch Utopia on Amazon. Pay attention to the “disclaimer” at the beginning of each episode, where it tells you it has nothing to do with the current “pandemic” and is entirely a work of fiction.
Watch while John Cusak’s character tells you his “vaccine” will prevent three generations of people from having children. Not his people of course, but you know, everyone else. Because he is the benevolent overlord who knows what’s best for us all, and sacrifices must be made, dontcha know.
For 40+ years we have been told about the rise of machines, the existence of a matrix, the coming apocalypse, the failure of the system. Then we have told it’s all a “work of fiction”. Sure. Fiction. I’ll be sure and remember that.
We’ve been hosting Covid-1984 (neé chicken pox) parties at our house all summer. Nary a hospital visit by our guests.
A virus is not alive. You can’t wipe it out with antibiotics or similar as you can bacteria. It is just a coil of DNA/RNA surrounded by a protein coat. Its sole mission in “life” is to find a host in which it can inject its DNA/RNA into its cells so that cell reproduction will produce millions or billions more viral protein structures to hopefully be able to spread to more hosts through airborne (generally) transmission. In a healthy person with a well-functioning immune system, that process will be interrupted by t-cells which initiate the formation of antibodies which attack the foreign proteins and destroy them. Generally those t-cells and antibodies stick around in the body so that if the viral proteins are encountered in the future, the response will be immediate before any large numbers of cells are compromised or any serious illness results. The more people in the society that have gone through this “cycle” of exposure, immune response/sickness, and recovery/antibody, t-cell buildup, the better for everyone else in society. At a certain point, this number becomes large enough that “herd immunity” is said to have been achieved. Fundamentally that means that given the rarity of the virus, the likelihood that it will encounter a host that is prepared to destroy it immediately, is so great as to render the likelihood of any future spread of the virus to others, nearly non-existent. That is not to say zero, as someone who has never been exposed could be the first one to encounter the virus in the future, but it will likely stop with them if the numbers of exposed are high enough.
You cannot get to herd immunity if NOBODY IS EXPOSED!!
We began with “flatten the curve” to hopefully keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed. Not one bit of advice on immune support (vitamin D, vitamin C, zinc, vitamin A, magnesium, selenium, supplementation) was ever given out. Effective drugs like Hydroxychloroquine were immediately attacked because they are no longer under patent protection and thus cost very little to administer (while the new Remdezevir(sp?) costs around $3000 per course of treatment – same company developed this drug as Tamiflu from the “swine flu” scamdemic in the mid 2000 period…no shock. Then the narrative went to “eliminate the curve” by somehow pretending that every case was a death sentence and so nobody should ever get the virus. Meanwhile the virus is still everywhere. Otherwise healthy folks under 60 face little to no serious consequences if they get the virus (even fewer if they are working to boost their immune systems). But NOBODY can truly get exposed as they need to be, because of the shutdowns, mask mandates, social distancing bullshit, etc.
I see signs every now and then saying “we support science.” Bullshit. They only support the science that serves their interest or their agenda. And clearly there is an agenda to this, or we would have followed Sweden to achieving herd immunity already or would not be doing everything to prevent it so that bigPharma can jab everyone with their deadly tracking vaccine and whatever else they have planned.
The science is simple and well-known. It is being willfully denied and ignored for a purpose.
Exactly. Every time I hear about cases going up, I say “good!”. Let’s get past this bullshit. Everybody could have lost 20-60 pounds since the lockdowns started if they were really worried.
I have found when trying to discuss herd immunity people just shut down. And apparently this is a magical virus that operates outside the realm of this reality. Apparently this virus can never be stopped via herd immunity, unlike others before it.
And apparently this virus is so magical, so confounding, that it is tough as nails yet can be stopped cold via a paper mask or a filthy bandana you found on the floor of your car.
Haha, I have not ever bought a mask but I do have a couple laying on the floor of my car. So true. Pup, you have a great ability to cut right through the bullshit.
QUESTION:
I hope you see this and answer.
I have a client that is 100% sure housing is going to go in the shitter soon.
Even worse than 08.
What say you?
While everyone is distracted by a stupid debate this week all the usual suspects (including DOD representatives) have been attending this 4 day brainstorm
https://www.terrapinn.com/Conference/world-vaccine-congress-washington/index.stm
Well said, ML Natural immunity is superior.
Setting aside arguendo the fallibility of testing protocols, the increased numbers of those exposed to the virus as the number of deaths continues to taper toward nil means the virus is petering out, and that’s a good thing. Yet, when I mention this simple concept to friends, especially the highly educated, it almost always triggers a cavalier rejection or dismissive change of topic.
The general thing I get is “but if you don’t know you have it because the symptoms are mild, you might bring it home to a loved one.” Or “so you think that millions should have to die to achieve herd immunity?”
As if nobody is ever listening….which they aren’t. They don’t want to have to admit that they were duped by assholes in government once again, and that the people they trusted (mommy and daddy) are just satan in disguise. Sorry idiots, but its true!! And the more who have mild symptoms and bring it home the better. They will be more than strong enough to help out their loved ones if their symptoms are worse.
And just imagine if they were all taking zinc and D, or if Hydroxychloroquine was available over the counter with nothing more than maybe a pharmacist’s consult (just to make sure…it does have some potential side effects and contraindications).
Don’t forget adequate consumption of the micronutrient selenium. Almost all naturally occurring viruses in the last 20 years have either originated in or flourished in areas of Africa and Asia that have selenium deficient soil. Some say selenium tabs with Vit. E on the side is helpful while others get their selenium from brazil nuts, which contain the highest amount of selenium of all foodstuffs. Be careful not to overdose though.
The saponifiers in inexpensive hand soap destroy the fatty material that comprises the protein shield that protects the virus; washing hands well does more to eliminate the risk of infection than a mask will ever do in most situations.
Figure out a way to destroy the protein once the virus gets inside the body and Dr. Tony will have you assassinated.
President Trump is equally responsible for this Covid-19 scandle. Why does he not end his emergency order regarding Covid-19? Then the governors and mayors would have no legal basis for their lockdowns. Why doesn’t President Trump bring in experts from private sources to offer their views and recommendations?
Are we so blind that we can’t see that President Trump is part of the problem? We don’t have any good choices for president this year.
No good choices? We’ve got a senile hair-sniffing old weirdo trying to oust a bombastic bullshitting asshole. It’s a no-brainer.
Should we pray for Hillary to come save us?
That is an amazingly good question. If Trump is not in on the scam, my answer would be that he believes the number of mask believers are high enough to ruin his reelection chances if he did.
Thunderbird asked an amazingly good question. Can anyone answer?
Damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t.