Dr. Scott Atlas, former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center and a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, made a scientific case for the concept of “herd immunity” as an effective case for fighting the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
During an appearance on Monday night’s edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Fox News host Tucker Carlson asked Atlas for a coronavirus response that “seems scientifically justifiable now” given new evidence about the “actual death rate” and how easy it spreads.
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Atlas called the virus’s high spread and low risk to most people “good news” because “that means that we have a better chance of developing population immunity.”
“Instead of total lockdown going on which prevents that, we have a chance to have people develop their own antibodies and eventually have enough people have these antibodies to block this sort of network of progression and contagion to the people who are vulnerable,” Atlas told Carlson, emphasizing that such is the logic behind vaccines, “to induce the so-called herd immunity.”
Asked to assess the recommendation of staying in place, the Stanford doctor called it “not just counterproductive,” but “actually harmful,” emphasizing the fact that potentially lifesaving preventative medicine has been halted.
“Of course the second part of it is, we know how to protect the vulnerable here,” he said. “It’s not so simple, but we know who the vulnerable population is, and we know that as we go, and let people mingle, like happened in the epicenter in New York … Over 20% of people in Manhattan were discovered to have antibodies. That’s a good number, and would have been higher if we had more social mingling, but we know that young people, young healthier people, I don’t see the logic in keeping them isolated. They are a vehicle to keep the transmission going to other lower risk groups and have population immunity develop.” (RELATED: ‘The Data Is In — Stop The Panic And End The Total Isolation’: Fmr. Stanford Chief Of Neuroradiology Discusses Viral Column)
“For some reason it is suddenly verboten to say any of that out loud,” said the Fox News host. “I’m glad you did.”