Trump Pandemic Advisor Scott Atlas Denies Suggesting Herd Immunity Strategy To Control Coronavirus

A coronavirus pandemic adviser to President Trump denies he suggested herd immunity as an approach to managing the virus after a report from the Washington Post suggested otherwise.

Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist and fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, clarified his stance on herd immunity Tuesday on SiriusXM’s “The Michael Smerconish Program.”

Atlas, who reportedly is not an infectious disease specialist or experienced in epidemiology, said: “I'm not sure if they fabricated it or someone told them a lie, but there's never been any advocacy of a herd immunity strategy coming from me to the president, to anyone in the administration, to the task force, to anyone I've spoken to.”

In the Post report, sources indicated that Atlas had discussed the idea with Trump as a strategy to combat the coronavirus. Using herd immunity as an approach to fight the coronavirus would allow the virus to spread without mitigation so people could build up an immunity to the virus while implementing added protections for vulnerable populations.

After the Post report, Atlas released a statement through the White House.

"There is no policy of the President or this administration of achieving herd immunity. There never has been any such policy recommended to the President or to anyone else from me," the statement read.

Proponents of herd immunity have pointed to Sweden as a successful model. But in an opinion article in the Wall Street Journal this week, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, pointed out how following Sweden's approach is misguided.

"Many Swedes pulled back from normal activities to shelter themselves from infection anyway, even younger and middle-aged people. The country experienced 5,821 Covid deaths in a population the size of North Carolina. And Sweden is far short of herd immunity, even as the country’s economic recovery ranks among the worst in its region," Gottlieb noted.

The impact of herd immunity is the loss of thousands, if not millions of people. At a press briefing on Monday, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called it "moral bankruptcy."

Dr. Tedros condemned those who support the idea of herd immunity, which discounts the lives of the elderly.