Trump’s Covid Adviser, Scott Atlas, Dismisses Congressional Testimony of CDC Director on Importance of Masks: ‘I Don’t Think Anyone Believes That’

Zachary PetrizzoSep 17th, 2020, 8:17 pm
 

Dr. Scott Atlas, a coronavirus pandemic advisor to President Donald Trump and Stanford University fellow, took aim at Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the CDC, dismissing his remarks to Congress about the efficacy of masks.

On Wednesday, Redfield had told a Senate Appropriations Committee, under oath, that masks are more protective currently than a vaccine. 

“In terms of Dr. Redfield’s statements, he said deep into 2021, essentially, before anybody who doesn’t have a risk factor, can say, ‘I want to go to the doctor and get my vaccine,'” Fox News host Martha MacCallum began. “Do you agree with him on that?”

Atlas demurred briefly but then eventually waved away Redfield’s public statements as possibly mistaken, echoing the president’s own criticism at a White House briefing on Wednesday.

“No, because that’s not the statement I was told by the people in HHS who are doing the vaccine deployment. I just got the information from them yesterday before the press conference,” Atlas claimed. “So, I’m not sure exactly what he meant or where he got his information.”

“I’m not disagreeing with him, I don’t know who told him that,” Atlas added. “All I can go by is what I was told.”

MacCallum then asked about the mask and vaccine comparison.

“Lastly, is a mask of better protection or just as good as a vaccine, which might only have perhaps a 70% efficacy rate?” she asked.

“You know, Martha, I hate to comment on somebody else’s statement, but that statement is just, I don’t know where that statement comes from. I think it was taken out of context or maybe it was said inadvertently, but I don’t think anyone believes that,” Atlas remarked. “I really don’t think that Dr. Redfield believes that.”

“He was very deliberate in his statement,” MacCallum noted, breaking in.

“I was going to say, I can’t really comment on why people say certain things,” Atlas replied, before suggesting the CDC director made inaccurate statements to Congress. “We all make missteps when we speak.”

The appointment of Atlas, who is a radiologist and not a epidemiologist, to the Covid task has generated intense scrutiny. In fact, Atlas’s comments, in particular his past claims supporting “herd immunity,” have been condemned by dozens of his peers at Stanford, who said “many of his opinions run[ing] counter to established science.”

Watch above, via Fox News.

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