Dr. Scott Atlas responds to Biden, warns prolonged coronavirus lockdown is ‘killing people’

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Dr. Scott Atlas says prolonged COVID lockdowns are severely harmful to the country: It's killing people

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden vows to shut down the U.S. economy again if necessary; reaction from Dr. Scott Atlas, special adviser to the president.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has promised to lock down the U.S. if scientists advise it, but Special Adviser to the President Dr. Scott Atlas told “The Story" Monday that prolonging lockdowns is only leading to more deaths.

“I think we all know that the prolonged lockdown is severely harmful to our country,” Atlas told host Martha MacCallum. “In fact, it's killing people. We don't just talk even about the medical care that's been missed. We're not just talking about the unemployment-related suicides and other harms. We have the latest data from the CDC that showed that there's a massive increase in people with psychiatric illness and depressive and anxiety disorders.”

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According to CDC data, more than 25% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 have contemplated suicide in the last 30 days. Atlas said President Trump is carrying out policy that is “strategic and appropriate” to protect the vulnerable since this has “really got to end.”

“It's not about all the cases that's the most important metric,” he said. “It's about saving lives by protecting the vulnerable, by preventing hospital overcrowding … and by opening the economy, opening the schools. Because American lives are being destroyed.”

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Atlas noted that nations like the U.K. are already realizing that keeping people locked down is an inappropriate use of policy and stated that the fatality rate in the U.S. from the coronavirus has dropped by 90% percent since the peak of the pandemic in April.

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The Hoover Institution senior fellow chalked up the decline to improvements in treatment and prevention, as well as greater knowledge of the virus and how it spreads.

“No one knows if there’s going to be a second wave,” he said. “I think there's been a massive amount of mobilized resources by this administration, a massive amount of production of ventilators, a massive amount of development of drugs and life-saving therapies … If there is a second wave, we're going to be in much better shape to deal with it.”

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Atlas also encouraged schools and universities to remain open, insisting that they "are very safe environments."

“When you start testing people who are asymptomatic or mildly ill ... Then you end up sending them back home to a high-risk environment, which is where their elderly parents live," he said. "It's totally nonsensical, really, and anti-science to close schools on the basis of patients who are really asymptomatic and have very low risk."