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Dr. Scott Atlas
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“ ‘Everything he says is false.’ ”
That’s Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reportedly criticizing Scott Atlas, a new member of the White House coronavirus task force, for arming President Trump with misleading information.
Redfield was overheard by NBC News on a phone call flying from Atlanta to Washington. He confirmed that he was talking about Atlas, who was added to the White House team in August as a neuroradiologist with no background in infectious diseases or public health.
Some of the issues Redfield has a problem with, according to the report, include the efficacy of masks, whether young people are susceptible to the virus and the benefits of herd immunity.
As this tweet TWTR, +0.18% shows, Redfield isn’t the only one calling out Atlas, who was a frequent guest on Fox News before he was added to the task force:
Earlier this month, Redfield testified to Congress that he suspects that a mask could protect him from COVID-19 better than any future vaccine.
“If every one of us did it, this pandemic would be over in eight to 12 weeks,” he said, adding that “we’re nowhere near the end,” which contradicted the president’s view that the country is “rounding the corner” on the coronavirus pandemic.
In a statement provided to NBC News, Atlas defended himself, explaining “everything I have said is directly from the data and the science. It echoes what is said by many of the top medical scientists in the world, including those at Stanford, Harvard, and Oxford.”
