CDC director takes aim at Trump's Covid adviser: 'Everything he says is false'
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was overheard on a phone conversation aboard a commercial flight saying a lead member of Donald Trump's coronavirus taskforce has been spreading misinformation about the pandemic.
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Dr Robert Redfield was overheard by an employee of NBC News on a flight from Atlanta to Washington. According to NBC, Redfield criticized Scott Atlas, a radiologist and Fox News talking head added to the taskforce last month.
"Everything he says is false," Redfield said about Atlas, NBC reported. Redfield later confirmed he had been talking about Atlas.
Confirmed deaths from Covid-19 in the United States have passed 200,000 and the number of cases has passed 7m.
Atlas, who has no background in infectious diseases but who appears to have the best current access to Trump of any medical adviser, has been frequently criticized by the scientific and medical communities for offering what public health professionals say is bad advice about coronavirus.
Atlas has misleadingly called into question the efficacy of masks and social distancing, has echoed Trump's call for reopening schools, and perhaps most controversially has support the purposeful contraction of the virus by young people to create so-called "herd immunity".
Public health experts warn that the viability of a "herd immunity" against coronavirus without a vaccine is unknown, given uncertainty about levels and duration of immunity in individual cases. They also say that achieving "herd immunity" would involve millions of infections and unknown thousands of cases of serious illness and death.
Atlas is a former Stanford medicine professor and a senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
His controversial statements drew an open letter from 78 former colleagues at Stanford medical school, who warned that his advice was dangerous.
"Many of his opinions and statements run counter to established science, and, by doing so, undermine public-health authorities and the credible science that guides effective public health policy," the letter said.
Asked to respond to Redfield's comments, Atlas told NBC News: "Everything I have said is directly from the data and the science."
In the judgment of Redfield and other specialists, that is not true. The CDC said NBC News heard only "one side" of Redfield's conversation, but did not dispute the report.
"NBC News is reporting one side of a private phone conversation … overheard on a plane from Atlanta Hartsfield airport," the CDC said. "Dr Redfield was having a private discussion regarding a number of points he has made publicly about Covid-19."
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Trump elevated Atlas in the rank of his coronavirus group simply because Atlas was telling him what he wanted to hear.
Everything Atlas says is false because everything trumpturd says is false.
Over 200,000 Americans dead, Atlas shrugs.
Mind if I have that put on a t-shirt?
It is very clever
It will go well with the "Over 200,000 Americans dead, Trump says "It is what it is".
Or "Over 200,000 Americans dead, Trump says "I still like playing it down".
I think Atlas actually farted but that might not sell as many t-shirts.
205K dead by the end of the day.
This Atlas is also touting herd immunity.
Some NT members are also touting herd immunity.
That puts millions at risk.
It's fairly obvious that the Trump sycophants have already developed herd immunity. They are completely immune to facts, truth and reality. They prefer alternative facts, alternative truth and alternative reality, which they seem to have found by taking up residency deep within Trumps bowels.
The anti-science lemmings want everybody to jump off of their cliff.
You mean the 'herd mentality'?
In some respects..... at least in this case.... mentality and immunity could be considered interchangeable....
I think I've developed "heard" immunity.
I've heard about all I ever want to hear from Trump so I hit the mute button every time I see him on TV.
Therefore I am immune - at least to his blatherings.
That's why I don't willingly watch anything where trumpturd is speaking. I won't/cannot watch the debates. I'll wait for Stephen Colbert's updates or Trevor Noah. That will at least be humorous.