Trump adds new doctor to his virus task force
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has found a new doctor for his coronavirus task force — and this time, there’s no daylight between them.
Mr. Trump announced last week that Dr. Scott Atlas, a frequent guest on Fox News Channel, has joined the White House as a pandemic adviser. Dr. Atlas, the former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center and a fellow at Stanford’s conservative Hoover Institution, has no expertise in public health or infectious diseases.
But he has long been a critic of coronavirus lockdowns and has campaigned for kids to return to the classroom and for the return of college sports — just like Mr. Trump.
“Scott is a very famous man who’s also very highly respected,” Mr. Trump told reporters as he introduced the addition. “He has many great ideas and he thinks what we’ve done is really good.”
Dr. Atlas’ hiring comes amid ongoing tensions between the president and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, and Dr. Deborah Birx, the task force’s coordinator. While Dr. Birx remains closely involved in the administration’s pandemic response, both she and Dr. Fauci have publicly contradicted the rosy picture the president has attempted to paint of a virus that has now killed more than 167,000 Americans and infected millions more nationwide.
Dr. Atlas, the sole doctor to share the stage at Mr.
Trump’s pandemic briefings this past week, has long questioned polices that have been embraced by public health experts both in the U.S. and across the world. He has called it a “good thing” for younger, healthy people to be exposed to the virus, while falsely claiming children are at near “zero risk.”
In TV appearances, Dr. Atlas has called on the nation to “get a grip” and argued that “there’s nothing wrong” with having lowrisk people get infected.
“It doesn’t matter if younger, healthier people get infected. I don’t know how often that has to be said. They have nearly zero risk of a problem from this,” he said in one appearance. “When younger, healthier people get infected, that’s a good thing,” he went on to say, “because that’s exactly the way that population immunity develops.”
While younger people are at far lower risk of developing serious complications from the virus, they can still spread it to others who may be more vulnerable, even when they have no symptoms.
But Dr. Atlas’ thinking closely aligns with Mr. Trump’s perspective on the virus, which he has played down since its earliest days. Mr. Trump has pressured states to reopen schools and businesses as he tries to revive a battered economy before the November election.