Dr. Scott Atlas: The coronavirus cure is now worse than the disease
Dr. Scott Atlas, senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, blasts the 'almost irrational focus' on stopping COVID-19 no matter the cost.
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Dr. Scott Atlas argued on Tuesday that a “targeted policy” for mitigating the spread of the coronavirus is a more viable approach than a large scale economic shutdown, a move that has caused "destruction" and death.
“The cure is bigger than the disease at this point,” the senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University said on “The Story with Martha McCallum."
The former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford noted that there is a focus on the "sensationalistic modulations of a hypothetical projection model" instead of assessing the costs of a "total isolation policy." Atlas claimed that the policy of "total isolation" is "destructive and killing people."
"I'll give you an example: 150,000 new patients with cancer are diagnosed every single month in the United States. ... Most of them are not getting diagnosed," Atlas said.
Atlas also said that half of the people on chemotherapy are not getting the routine cancer treatment, in addition to other routine medical procedures because of "irrational fear" about the virus.
“For people who care about every life, what about the United Nations projection saying that the economic lockdown itself will throw an extra 125 million people into starvation? We’re not talking about poverty like the U.S. knows, we’re talking about less than $5.50 per day living.”
On Saturday on "Cavuto LIVE," Dr. Ali Mokdad said that the U.S. has to "bring about reopening the country" in a careful manner using the scientific tools at the nation's disposal. Right now is the "right time" for America to consider safely lifting coronavirus restrictions on a case-by-case basis, Mokdad urged Saturday.
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"And, what's going well for us is the increased numbers of testing that allows us to detect cases early on through the tracing and isolation," he noted.
"[I]t's the right time to consider opening," Mokdad added. "Different states are at different [stages] of the virus circulation and they can do it much easier and much faster than other states."
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Atlas went on to say, “The curves have been flattened. We actually know how to do a targeted protection policy. Frankly, I’m wondering why it took seven weeks after the lockdown of New York on March 20th to finally realize that the older vulnerable people need strict protection, with testing entrances into nursing homes, for instance.”
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