Trump Names Stanford Professor Critical of Lockdowns to White House Covid Task Force

President Donald Trump signaled a new shift in his public health posture to the coronavirus pandemic Monday at the White House when he announced the presence of Dr. Scott Atlas – who has warned of the costs of school closings.

It was just one of multiple areas where Trump made news or veered into murky statements at a White House press briefing that was briefly interrupted after a Secret Service agent told Trump he needed to stop the briefing following what the president later said was a shooting outside the White House.

After Trump declared himself not rattled by the sudden interruption, he briefly pointed to Atlas, a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and mentioned him to the press. He said Atlas, who has appeared on Fox News, ‘will be working with us on the coronavirus’ and ‘he has many great ideas.’

The shout-out came after Trump has spent weeks occasionally clashing with national health expert Dr. Anthony Fauci on lockdowns and school closings.

Conservative commentator hailed the appointment on his website, writing about ‘good news’ that he was added to the vice president’s coronavirus task force.

‘Scott Atlas is a brilliant guy and he thinks by early October that we could well be burned out of COVID. In his opinion, we could see it turn inert,’ according to the story on Limbaugh’s site.

The news comes after Trump also tweeted about coronavirus task force expert Dr. Deborah Birx, calling it ‘pathetic’ after she warned about lockdowns following criticism from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Atlas in his speakers’ bureau bio says he has advised presidential candidates, and has been identified as an advisor to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 campaign.

Atlas spoke to Fox News in a mid-July appearance amid national debate over keeping schools closed.

‘We are the only country in the world, this is a level of hysteria like this is something I feel like I’m living in a Kafka novel here. I mean, I get thousands of e-mails a week from all over the world, from professors, teachers, mothers in the United States and elsewhere, they are stunned that we are willing to just simply destroy our children out of some bizarre notion that is completely contrary to the science,’ he said.

Source: The Daily Mail