JFC

The Trump administration’s health chief met Monday with a trio of scientists who back the controversial theory that the United States can quickly and safely achieve widespread immunity to the coronavirus by allowing it to spread unfettered among healthy people.

The meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, which also included Trump adviser Scott Atlas, is the latest example of administration officials — including the president himself — seeking out scientists whose contrarian views justify the government’s handling of a pandemic that has killed 210,000 people and infected nearly 7.5 million so far in the U.S.

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The trio, who Azar described as “three distinguished infectious disease experts,” favors moving aggressively to reopen the economy while sidelining broad testing and other fundamental public health measures. “Three months, maybe six is sufficient time for enough immunity to accumulate … that the vulnerable could resume normal lives.”

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That aligns with the “herd-immunity” strategy endorsed by [Trump adviser Scott] Atlas, who Bhattacharya said was their “point of contact” for the meeting. Atlas, a neuroradiologist and senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, has emerged as a favored adviser to the president despite his lack of expertise in public health, infectious disease or epidemiology, and his skepticism of basic safety measures like wearing masks.

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Mainstream medical and public health experts say that seeking widespread, or herd, immunity in the manner the scientists prescribe could result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands or even millions more U.S. residents.

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Studies by the CDC and academic scientists have concluded that fewer than 10 percent of Americans had antibodies to the virus by July. That’s far fewer than the 60 to 70 percent infection rate most experts believe is needed to achieve herd immunity. They say that getting there without a vaccine would dramatically increase the Covid-19 death toll and leave a large number of Americans with lasting health problems.

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“They are putting out a half baked policy proposal that is not grounded in science, but aligns very well with the political direction that the administration wants to take and that the president wants to take and that he sees as being most consistent with his reelection prospects.”

  Politico

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.