President Donald Trump announced this week that Dr. Scott Atlas, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, will serve as a new “adviser” to the president on COVID-19. Atlas, whose background is in diagnostic radiology, is not an expert in infectious disease but rather a pundit and frequent Fox guest who has been repeatedly wrong about the pandemic.
Atlas, who has appeared 20 times on Fox News since the end of April, predicted in March that there would only be 10,000 deaths from COVID in America, said in April that the pandemic “appears to be entering the containment phase,” and claimed in May that “the curves have been flattened.” More recently, he has taken to making unproven claims downplaying the risk of COVID-19 in considering whether to reopen schools for in-person learning.
But Fox News and other right-wing outlets have elevated his politically convenient though dubious commentary; and on August 12 he gave brief remarks during a White House press briefing after Trump asked him to come up to the podium. Continue reading.