One of President Trump’s top advisers on the coronavirus pandemic raised concerns on Monday about excluding older family members from Thanksgiving celebrations, citing the risks of isolation.
Scott Atlas, who has promoted controversial ideas about the virus such as herd immunity, said on Fox News that it’s important to protect “vulnerable, high-risk, senior family members.” But he suggested it may be worth including them in holiday gatherings.
“This kind of isolation is one of the unspoken tragedies of the elderly, who are now being told ‘don’t see your family at Thanksgiving,’ ” Atlas told Martha MacCallum. “For many people, this is their final Thanksgiving believe it or not.”
“What are we doing here?” he continued. “I think we have to have a policy, which I have been advocating, which is a whole person, whole health policy. It’s not about just stopping cases of COVID, we have to talk about damage of the policy itself.”
Atlas praised the Trump administration for developing vaccines and getting resources to at-risk communities before adding “we cannot lock down.”
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Trump adviser Scott Atlas criticizes plans to avoid seeing elderly for Thanksgiving https://t.co/XU1shQjeXz pic.twitter.com/MVevn9VfuZ
— The Hill (@thehill) November 17, 2020
Has Atlas always been this dumb or did drinking the Trump cult kool aid make him into an idiot?
My family includes an 89-year-old aunt plus most of the rest of us are 60 something or 70. We all have risk factors such as heart disease and diabetes as well, We are not going to have as many as 10 of us huddled together at the dinner table for Thanksgiving even if none of us has the virus.
Yes, it’s hard not seeing each other, particularly for my aunt who has no tech (hence no Skype or Zoom). But we do talk on the telephone. We are not snowflakes. We will find ways to stay in touch without putting anyone at risk, and if we can’t see each other, we will survive. If people had avoided crowds, wore masks and practiced the rest of the CDC recommendations early on, none of us would be alone for the holidays or any other time.
The biggest lie of herd immunity is that you can protect the vulnerable. You can’t and I don’t think that is Atlas’s intention. I believe that he believes that the elderly and weak should be culled out of the herd. And if we can make them go happily after a big turkey dinner with the family all the better right? Kill them with kindness. My dad will be 90 years old tomorrow. Every Thanksgiving we also celebrated 3 family birthdays that are close together. This year we won’t. We have planned a pumpkin pie eating zoom meeting for Thanksgiving evening and we will have our annual Thanksgiving history quiz for the kids and enjoy visiting. But with my two parents who both have heart problems and with my husband and I having several risk factors ourselves the most loving thing to do is to NOT get together in person. We will be having a virtual Christmas as well. I don’t understand how someone can claim they love their family yet put each other at such risk. While I may not be able to hug them or see them in person the most important thing to me is that they are alive and thanks to modern technology, I can still hear their voices, see their faces and say “I love you”.
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