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.GovRonDeSantis opens a Tallahassee #COVID19 event with White House advisor Scott Atlas who has supported the president's positions on masks and opening schools, quoted as saying "the disease is extremely low for children, even less than that of seasonal flu."
WH advisor Scott Atlas says 'the strategy is understanding who is going to be vulnerable' with focus on protecting those in nursing homes, prevent hospital overcrowding and 'open schools and the rest of society because a prolonged lockdown is extraordinarily harmful.'
Atlas says @realDonaldTrump strategy is to have all nursing homes have point of care testing in the next month, including 'better infection control' and 'surge testing by CDC strike teams when necessary' with a purpose of keeping things open and 'protect the vulnerable'
Atlas says @GovRonDeSantis policy is 'exactly right on target'. Ed Secretary @richardcorcoran the drop in cases 'has allowed us to open up our schools' and said all schools in Florida is open and 'parental choice works'
Atlas is arguing that testing should be discouraged for asymptomatic people in schools and is unnecessary: "If you close colleges, you're sending low risk asymptomatic people into a high risk environment by sending them home with their older parents out into the community."
The message is getting pretty clear coming from the @GovRonDeSantis @GovRonDeSantis and the new WH advisor visiting this important swing state: let's stop testing, especially of people who don't have symptoms.
Restricting testing of asymptomatic people is a position opposed by other members of the president’s ask force. Dr. Anthony Fauci said he worried 'it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern. In fact it is' https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/26/politics/fauci-coronavirus-cdc-testing/index.html
White House Coronavirus Task Force leader Dr. Deborah Birx, told state and local leaders on Aug. 19 that that universities should test all students returning for fall classes as well as set up “surge” testing. https://publicintegrity.org/health/coronavirus-and-inequality/birx-coronavirus-call-surge-testing-covid/
Says Atlas: "We're the only country of our nations in the Western world that's hysterical over opening schools...other countries, the UK, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, France, England, Italy, Spain, they are all opening schools."
