Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida met with White House coronavirus advisor Scott Atlas in Florida on Monday and discussed the state’s plans for schooling during the pandemic. The Miami Herald reports:
Gov. Ron DeSantis brought the White House’s new coronavirus adviser, Scott Atlas, to Tallahassee on Monday to embrace a controversial testing policy that suggests people with no symptoms should be discouraged from testing because it leads to shutdowns, a position opposed by other members of the president’s task force.
“The CDC is not saying you cannot get a test. They’re just saying there’s a rationale for getting a test, and if you are concerned, you can contact your doctor or your local health official,’’ said Atlas, an adviser to the White House Coronavirus Task Force, at the media event held at the state Capitol. “But there must be a prioritization because we need to use the testing — not to lock down society — you need to have the testing result in something very positive and that is decreasing deaths.”
DeSantis invited Atlas, a neuroradiologist from Stanford’s conservative Hoover Institution, to speak on the day the last of Florida’s school districts resumed classes, some online and some in person. Also with them was Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran, Surgeon General Scott Rivkees and two parents of children in Tallahassee schools. None of the panelists wore masks.
Atlas said that while “asymptomatics [people who have no symptoms] can spread” the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, it is less important to prevent the spread of the virus among the general population than it is to prevent the spread among the vulnerable.
“You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that if someone’s coughing up virus, they are going to be spreading so there’s no doubt that the symptomatic super spreaders are the symptomatic people,’’ Atlas said.
