DeSantis Goes on Tour with Trump’s New Pandemic Advisor Who Has No Infectious Disease Background
As the United States passed six million cases, Donald Trump’s new pandemic adviser who disagrees with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, on the need for mask mandates, is touring Florida today with Ron DeSantis. Notably, Dr. Scott Atlas is a neuroradiologist who does not have a background in infection diseases or epidemiology.
This morning during a roundtable on school reopening, Dr. Atlas said that widespread testing of asymptomatic people, especially at colleges, was unnecessary and downplayed the risk COVID-19 poses to children. This advice is in direct opposition to what Dr. Deborah Birx has advocated for, which is to do entrance and surge testing at universities.
Furthermore, the new CDC guidelines cited by Dr. Atlas on testing have been widely criticized by medical experts, including Dr. Fauci who said he was “concerned” and was in the hospital — not involved in these discussions — when these changes were made.
“The last thing Floridians need is another premature victory lap from Donald Trump’s lackeys. We know how it ended last time: coronavirus cases exploded, thousands of people died, and more workers lost their jobs,” said FDP spokesperson Frances Swanson, “Infectious disease experts have been crystal clear for months that widespread testing is the key to controlling the pandemic. Donald Trump has also been crystal clear that he believes more testing makes him look bad and he wants it to ‘slow down.’ While DeSantis goes on tour with a Trump advisor who lacks infectious disease expertise, Floridians are in urgent need of a leader who will actually get the coronavirus pandemic under control.”
Testing is widely accepted to be the key to controlling the coronavirus pandemic
- February is known as the “lost month” because Trump’s failure to rapidly scale testing allowed COVID-19 to spread throughout the United States undetected.
- Eight weeks after its first infection, South Korea tested nearly 300,000 people. The United States only reported testing 56,000 people in the same time frame.
- Widely respected infectious disease experts have openly criticized the CDC’s change in testing guidelines, saying widespread testing is critical to containment. President of the American Medical Association, Dr. Susan Bailey, said the new guideline is “a recipe for community spread and more spikes in coronavirus.”
- Trump is politically motivated to limit testing — during his Tulsa rally in June, Trump said he asked his “people” to “slow the testing down” because it leads to negative press coverage.
Trump’s rush to reopen schools regardless of whether it’s safe has led to massive outbreaks amongst kids and college students.
- Trump is pushing forward with his plan to reopen schools in-person regardless of what medical experts say and despite coronavirus cases continuing to rise, while offering zero solutions to help our schools, teachers and students prepare.
- As a result, the child infection rate has increased 21% since early August.
- In the past two and a half weeks in Florida, 9,200 new COVID-19 have been detected among children.
- There are reports of 8,700 new cases at colleges and universities in 36 states.