LOL this is pretty rich coming from Scott Atlas, given today's piece in the Washington Post: "colleagues said they regard (Atlas) as ill-informed, manipulative and at times dishonest."

The time has come to clear out all the stupid shit he's shoveling. https://twitter.com/SWAtlasHoover/status/1318136468544589825
Favorite part of the piece: Atlas flexes by sitting at the big boy desk.

"Atlas’s ascendancy was apparent during a recent Oval Office meeting. After Trump left the room, Atlas startled other aides by walking behind the Resolute Desk and occupying the president’s personal space"
Let's get down to what Atlas is sagely advising in terms of the pandemic though and see if it's supported by evidence or not.
1. He is opposed to surveillance testing. This is testing asymptomatic people with no known exposure risk.

Most public health folks understand that surveillance is critical to stop spread in the community, especially for a virus that can spread presymptomatically.
Since people who don't know they are infected can be contagious, it's really important to identify them as early as possible so they can be isolated before they can transmit to others. Then trace their contacts and quarantine those people. That's how you break transmission chains
But you'll never be able to do that if you can't identify those presymptomatic people through surveillance testing. Transmission will continue. Cases will continue to rise. This is basic epidemiology, but how would a neuroradiologist like Atlas know that?
2. He loves the idea of herd immunity via natural infection.

To be fair, he says that's not true. "We emphatically deny that the White House, the President, the Administration, or anyone advising the President has pursued..."
"... or advocated for a wide-open strategy of achieving herd immunity by letting the infection proceed through the community."

Oh really? Well then how does Atlas explain his love for the Great Barrington Declaration?
Now comes the time where I say that I agree that herd immunity will be important for ending the pandemic—herd immunity achieved through vaccination, that is.

Natural-acquired herd immunity has *NEVER* been used as a pandemic response strategy.
Why is that? Well, it 1. takes forever, 2. viruses can counteract the immune system and natural infection may not induce robust or durable protective immunity, and 3. MORE THAN A MILLION PEOPLE COULD DIE.

Yet Scott Atlas has an answer for that too.
3. He thinks we're already approaching the herd immunity threshold. This threshold is different for every virus and we don't know what that is for SARS-CoV-2, but it's likely around 60% of the population. So far, only about 10-15% of the population of the US has been infected.
But Atlas thinks it's higher. Why? Studies showing that ~30-50% of people may have memory T cells from prior common cold coronavirus infections that cross-react with SARS-CoV-2. This is an interesting observation but a far cry from herd immunity.
The functional importance of these T cells isn't known and you don't calculate herd immunity threshold by adding the percentage of seropositive people (with antibodies) and the percentage of people who maybe have cross-reactive T cells.
But I guess it makes sense to someone whose primary understanding of the immune system is limited to seeing inflammation on someone's brain MRI (or whatever neuroradiologists do...I'm not an expert in that area but unlike Dr. Atlas, I don't pretend to be).
4. He thinks masks don't work. He tweeted this over the weekend and backed it up with an article by the American Institute for Economic Research. If the AIER sounds familiar, it's because that's the libertarian think-tank that funded the Great Barrington Declaration.
Twitter took that tweet down after myself and numerous colleagues pointed out that it's untrue misinformation. Naturally, Atlas is clutching his pearls and bemoaning the woeful state of pandemic propaganda today. His right to tell bald-faced lies is being CENSORED.
I suspect this free speech self-pity party is what motivated the Orwell quote that Atlas started his morning with. The irony, of course, is that he is the one telling the public to reject the evidence of their eyes and ears.
Over 220,000 people have died from COVID-19. Not from lockdowns or wearing masks or surveillance testing. From COVID-19. That is the evidence Dr. Atlas, on behalf of his Party, is telling us to reject. We choose whether history will reflect truth or not. I hope we choose wisely.
You can follow @angie_rasmussen.
Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

Latest Threads Unrolled: