White House coronavirus adviser Scott Atlas reacts to Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis, says ‘zero reason to panic’
Dr. Scott Atlas, a special adviser on coronavirus to President Trump, said Friday he expects the president and first lady to make a “complete, full and rapid recovery” after the two tested positive for COVID-19, adding, “there is zero reason to panic.”
During an exclusive interview with Fox News, Atlas said the novel coronavirus is an infection “that is very difficult to avoid.”
“It is no surprise that people get the infection, even with precautions,” Atlas said. “I anticipate a complete and full and rapid recovery back to normal after his necessary confinement period. I anticipate he’ll be back on the road and in full swing.”
Atlas called the president a “super vigorous man,” adding that he has “never seen anyone with more energy and more vigor, at any age, but particularly at his age.”
“He is a very, very healthy guy,” Atlas said. “And the overwhelming majority of people, even at his age, do fine with this. He is very healthy, and so I anticipate the same for him.”
When asked about the first lady, Atlas also maintained that “she is not a high-risk person at all and I anticipate she will do perfectly well.”
Atlas stressed that the president and first lady’s positive test results “change nothing” about what “should already be known.”
“This is a widespread, highly contagious infection, and this is going to be very mild or asymptomatic for the overwhelming majority of people, especially if you’re a healthy person,” he explained.
The Unscientific Attack on the Science of Dr. Scott Atlas
The news media until recently had rarely criticized the medical advice of experts — especially those who worked for federal bureaucracies, international organizations or elite universities.
Yet the much-praised Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, has demonstrably weakened the effort to fight COVID-19.
During the critical initial weeks of the virus’s spread, Tedros parroted Chinese propaganda. He falsely assured a complacent world that the virus was likely not transmissible between humans and did not warrant travel bans. That Tedros was the first WHO director not to have a medical degree was seldom cited by the media.
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel is known to the public for his past advocacy of the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act. Although he now advises 77-year-old presidential candidate Joe Biden, Emanuel once wrote an article for The Atlantic titled “Why I hope to die at 75,” contending that that life after age 75 is, and should be, mostly over — now an eerie idea in a time of a pandemic that targets the elderly.
Emanuel has often weighed in on the COVID-19 pandemic, sometimes in overly pessimistic fashion by suggesting that some acquired collective immunity and a viable vaccine were not likely to come soon.
Yet Emanuel also has been largely exempt from media criticism. No reporters have questioned his epidemiological expertise despite his background as an oncologist specializing in breast cancer.
The esteemed Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has given conflicting advice on the use of masks, quarantining and the methods of viral transmission. Yet such inconsistency is either ignored or chalked up by the media to the usual learning curve of dealing with a new epidemic.
So why — other than politics — is there now a concerted media attack on Dr. Scott Atlas, an adviser to the Trump administration on COVID-19 policy?
Atlas has had a distinguished career as one of world’s top neuroradiologists. He has become a national expert on public health policy, especially in the cost-benefit analysis of government programs.
After COVID-19 arrived in the U.S., Atlas consistently warned that government must follow science, not politics, in doing the least amount of harm to its people. He has reminded us that those under 65 rarely die from COVID-19, and that those infected who are younger than 20 usually do not show any serious symptoms.
Accordingly, Atlas has urged the states to focus more resources on the most vulnerable — those over 65, who account for the vast majority of COVID-19 deaths — and allow younger Americans to re-enter schools and the workforce with appropriate caution.
Atlas has also warned that the available test data on COVID-19’s infectiousness, spread and morbidity must be handled with care, given that those who feel sick are more like to get tested. He argues that those with some natural protection from the virus, either through antibodies from an asymptotic past infection or through T-cells, may be a far larger group than previously thought.
But most importantly, Atlas has warned that government must be careful not to endanger Americans with draconian lockdowns that curtail needed medical examinations, procedures and treatments.
Just as dangerous as the disease may be quarantine-related spikes in mental illness, substance abuse, child and spousal abuse, and depression from lost livelihoods. Children may be suffering irreparable harm from being locked down and kept out of school.
Atlas has shown that these policy choices unfortunately entail bad options and even worse ones, rather than good choices and even better alternatives. He has not played down the dangers of COVID-19 but rather has reminded us to look at scientific data that often belies media sensationalism.
Many in the media, some of his former colleagues at Stanford Medical School and some other Stanford faculty members have claimed that Atlas — a colleague of mine at the Hoover Institution — has acted unprofessionally. They allege that he has downplayed the lethality of the virus, implying that he is aiding the administration’s efforts to ease out of the quarantine.
Yet few if any of these complainants have cited supporting evidence, either from what Atlas has written or said. Often the accusations turn puerile, suggesting that Atlas can’t be a public health expert because he was originally a neuroradiologist.
In fact, rarely reported is that many members of the Stanford community are honored by its medical school receiving global acclaim for its diversity of expert scientific opinion on the virus.
Nobel Prize-winning biophysicist Michael Levitt of Stanford, along with several stellar Stanford epidemiologists, have been praised worldwide for their careful critiques of often media-generated misconceptions — especially on the overreliance on COVID-19 positive test data to calibrate viral prevalence and morbidly.
How ironic that some critics fault Atlas for not following science, but they do so in a fashion that is completely … well, unscientific.
The First Debate Eviscerated the Central Argument for Joe Biden’s Candidacy
When former Vice President Joe Biden announced his candidacy for president last year, he said he chose to run after witnessing the white nationalists in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017. He condemned President Donald Trump for supposedly praising white nationalists (Trump didn’t) and then said he was running for president because “I want to restore the soul of this country.” His premise? Trump is an aberration, and Biden will restore America’s decency.
Contrary to the popular narrative on the Left, the first presidential debate on Tuesday did not prove that Trump is a white supremacist. It did, however, prove that Joe Biden cannot restore the soul of America.
The “decency” candidate constantly interrupted his opponent during the debate. The candidate who wants to “restore the soul of America” unleashed a torrent of insults against his opponent. The “moderate” Biden refused to say whether or not he would pack the Supreme Court. What kind of “soul,” exactly, would he restore?
Biden and Trump proved rather rude to one another, although Biden’s personal insults were arguably worse.
The Democrat told his Republican opponent to shut up, called him a “racist,” a “liar,” and a “clown,” and said, “You’re the worst president that America’s ever had!”
How, exactly, would language like this “restore the soul of America?”
Biden’s debate performance is not the only argument against his ability to restore America’s soul.
Joe Biden has himself embraced the radical left and openly socialist faction of his party. He has refused to condemn antifa and Black Lives Matter rioters and agitators by name, instead blaming “right-wing militias” for the violence in American cities. Biden has bragged about the character defamation of Robert Bork, lied about the man who got into the tragic accident that killed his wife, and even compared Trump to the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.
Trump Eviscerates the False Narrative About His Proud Boys Answer to White Supremacy Question
Even if Biden was a moderate and an entirely decent man, most Americans expect that if Biden wins the election in November, his vice president will take up the mantle sometime before his 4-year term comes to a close. In other words, the ostensibly moderate Joe Biden is really a kind of Trojan Horse for one Kamala “let’s lock up pro-life journalists” Harris.
Harris is prickly, slimy, extremely disingenuous, and quite radical. She smeared Brett Kavanaugh with outright lies. After her record as a tough-on-crime attorney general, she tried to get hip by lying about smoking pot in college. She demonized Roman Catholic judges for their faith. Oh, and during the primary, she was the most vocal candidate to condemn a certain Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. for — among other things — working with segregationists in his own party.
President Trump is far from perfect, but he is curbing the radical Left’s transformation of America. He is defending the Constitution from the Left’s unilateral redefinition by nominating originalist judges and justices. He is restraining the radical transgender dissolution of gender in the law. He is countering the Marxist critical race theory of the 1619 Project. He is defending religious freedom against a Democratic onslaught.
Biden launched his campaign on the premise that Trump has destroyed America’s moral compass, whatever his policy successes. Yet on Tuesday, the Democrat definitively proved that he would not restore America’s moral compass.
On November 3, Americans have a choice between a president who stands with the original public meaning of the Constitution and a Democrat who wants judges to rewrite the Constitution according to their policy preferences, specifically in favor of abortion, and who refuses to say whether he’ll pack the Supreme Court wink wink, nod nod.
Both candidates are aggressive and rude. Perhaps Trump is ruder — although he may only seem that way because he has to fight the legacy media’s outright leftist bias. Biden wasn’t exactly decent to Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan in 2012.
The debate on Tuesday will not likely make a big difference in the polls, but it did undercut Joe Biden’s central argument for his candidacy. Americans who tire of Trump and want a “return to normalcy” should not pull the lever for Joe Biden. If they can’t stomach Trump, perhaps they should consider Libertarian Jo Jorgenson
Leader McConnell: ‘Full Steam Ahead’ on Judge Barrett’s Confirmation After POTUS Tests Positive for COVID-19/b>
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) indicated that the confirmation hearings for President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, will proceed as planned after President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for COVID-19.
Judge Barrett tested negative for coronavirus, has not been in contact with President Trump since her nomination ceremony, and is following CDC guidelines, the White House said.
McConnell tweeted that Judge Barrett’s confirmation will proceed “full steam ahead,” and Graham said that the president is “very engaged” in the hearings ahead:
IN BRIEF
Attorney for Kyle Rittenhouse to sue Joe Biden for libel after campaign video labels his client a white supremacist (Disrn)
Wife of Boston Marathon hero said Biden touched her in “an inappropriate and uncomfortable way” (Washington Examiner)
Pope Francis denies audience with Mike Pompeo; the ever-politicking Vatican warns against playing politics over China (Reuters)
California’s nanny-state governor signs corporate boardroom diversity law (Fox Business)
California task force will consider paying reparations for slavery (AP)
Disney lays off 28,000 employees (Disrn)
American and United to lay off 32,000 as airline aid talks drag on (Bloomberg)
Movie-industry group pleads for aid from Congress, warning “theaters may not survive” (MarketWatch)
Americans increasingly believe violence is justified if the other side wins (Politico)
Trump plans to slash refugee admissions to new low of 15,000 (Reuters)
Policy: How the administration is taking back the courts (The Daily Signal)
Policy: It’s beyond time to reform the UN Human Rights Council (The Dispatch)
For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement
No comments:
Post a Comment