Scott Atlas, U.S. President Donald Trump’s special adviser on the fight against the coronavirus, resigned on the 1st. As a highly controversial figure in the White House’s “Anti-epidemic Working Group”, he has been in conflict with other team members for months.
Fox News first reported the news, saying that Atlas’ resignation letter to Trump was dated December 1. As a “special government employee”, Atlas has a maximum of 130 days of service per year, which was originally scheduled to reach the ceiling this week.
A White House coronavirus response task force source told CNN that Atlas’s departure was good news for the task force, because people no longer need to discuss his “anti-epidemic theory” that has been criticized by his peers.
Atlas, a neuroradiologist at Stanford University, has no experience in public health or infectious disease prevention and treatment. He joined the White House Task Force on the Fight against the Epidemic this summer. Public health experts such as team members and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci have publicly criticized Atlas for providing misleading or misinformation to Trump about his epidemic prevention strategy.
Atlas was “deleted” by Twitter in October after downplaying the importance of wearing masks during the epidemic on social media Twitter in October. He recently claimed that the “lockdown” measures can be regarded as “epic failures” in terms of the effect of curbing the spread of the virus. This view was condemned by colleagues at Stanford University School of Medicine.
