Dr. Scott Atlas: ‘Anti-science’ lockdowns ‘killing people’

FPI / August 30, 2020

According to a July study in the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), non-covid deaths from causes such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes have increased during the pandemic while emergency room visits for those conditions were down.

The JAMA study found huge increases in excess deaths from underlying causes such as diabetes, heart disease and Alzheimer's disease in Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania – the five states with the most COVID-19 deaths in March and April.

New York City experienced the biggest jumps, including a 398 percent rise in heart disease deaths and a 356 percent increase in diabetes deaths.

Meanwhile, according to Centers for Disease Control (CDC) data, more than 25 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 have contemplated suicide in the last 30 days.

Joe Biden has promised that, if he is elected president, he would not hesitate to lock down the U.S. if scientists advise it.

But Special Adviser to the President Dr. Scott Atlas said in a Fox News interview on 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 "The Story" 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.”

Atlas said it is possible to end the lockdowns and still protect those vulnerable to the virus.

“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.”

Great Britain and other nations are realizing that keeping people locked down is an inappropriate use of policy, Atlas said, adding that the fatality rate in the U.S. from the coronavirus has dropped by 90 percent since the peak of the pandemic in April.

“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,” Atlas said.

He also encouraged schools and universities to remain open.

“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."

Free Press International