Letter to the editor: Dr. Scott Atlas was wrong hire as coronavirus adviser

Once again, President Trump is taking advice from an “expert” with no pertinent credentials for help with his covid-19 response. Dr. Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist, has no expertise in public health or infectious disease. A senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, he was hired to act as a mouthpiece for Trump’s covid-19 response team.

If you needed open-heart surgery, would you seek advice from a podiatrist or gynecologist? Hiring Atlas is analogous to such absurd thinking. Atlas may be a “world- renowned physician and scholar,” according to Judd Deere from Trump’s staff, but his expertise is in magnetic resonance imaging (completely unrelated to infectious disease or public health).

Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx are world-renowned experts in the fields of public health, immunity and infectious diseases. I will listen to these real infectious disease experts, along with experts from Johns Hopkins University, for real science to guide my decisions about covid-19, not an imaging expert who I believe is a mere political prop hired for what appears to be an attempt to legitimize Trump’s unscientific, politically motivated, inept covid-19 response.

How many more people have to die before Trump follows the science? A vote for Joe Biden is a vote for science.

Gary L. Steck

North Huntingdon