Twitter blocks Trump’s science adviser for posting false or misleading information

Only the best people.

Scott Atlas is a radiologist. He has no training in virology, epidemiology, public health management, statistical analysis, or any other field that would be relevant to the COVID crisis. It appears that he knows far less about viral diseases than laymen who have been cramming on the subject. You would be better off listening to a witch doctor. They always wear masks. And at least garlic poultices and incantations can’t do any harm. It is also believed that Atlas is nudging President Trump in the reckless direction of using a herd immunity strategy with no vaccine on the horizon.

As the director of the CDC pointed out bluntly, “Everything he (Scott Atlas) says is false.”

To repeat the math on herd immunity: scientists estimate that successful herd immunity would require about 2/3 of a population to carry antibodies. In the USA that is about 220 million people. At least 1.4% of Americans who contract the virus are expected to die from it (currently about 700 dead per day, and 50,000 infections per day), so the death toll would be three million.

And that’s if it works.

It probably won’t work because the immunity seems to be short-lived, which means that, lacking a vaccine, a population might never get to a point where 2/3 of the people have antibodies, because by the time the last people are infected, the immunity might be wearing off in those infected early. Let’s suppose that the antibodies last only four months. In that case, the only way to achieve herd immunity is to get antibodies into 220 million people almost instantly, and the only realistic way to do that is with a vaccine. Infecting 220 million people through community spread in three months may not even be possible, but if it were, the health care system could not possibly handle the number of hospital patients that would emerge from the strategy.

At this point I don’t know the actual average duration of immunity, nor does anyone else. Top researchers throughout the world are still learning about COVID-19. But if it is truly as short-lived as four months, we will have a decidedly difficult time with the logistics of fighting it – even with a vaccine, let alone by community spread.

10 thoughts on “Twitter blocks Trump’s science adviser for posting false or misleading information

  1. Throw another one on the grill, as Trump pushes Soviet Union style KGB disinformation for round 2 of ‘what about emails

    From the New York Times:
    “NYT Trump taxes report.
    Trump’s tax records show that Trump maintains a previously unknown bank account in China. The foreign accounts do not show up on Trump’s public financial disclosures because they are held under corporate names.

    Trump’s plans in China have been largely driven by Trump International Hotels Management — the one with a Chinese bank account.

    In 2017, Trump Int’l Hotels Mgmt—which has a Chinese bank acct—reported an unusually large spike in revenue—$17.5 million, more than the previous 5 yrs combined. It was accompanied by a $15.1 million withdrawal by Trump from the company’s capital account.”

    Shocker, Trump utilized his position in office to leverage pay-to-play with Chinese nationals, under financial accounts that were required to be disclosed by law that he of course didn’t.

    Lets hear more about that toughness on China or some email about Hunter Biden and corruption from Trump’s cult. What’s the next whataboutism now, another qAnon brainwashing experiment to see how stupid people are? You know, maybe, just maybe, this guy is a con artist who has been spending day one looking for his own personal gain out of this to satisfy is failing businesses and debt load.

  2. Twitter shouldn’t be blocking anything or anyone. They can flag it as “sensitive” or “not fact checked” but blocking it is ridiculous. Especially when it is so clear that twitter, Facebook google etc have a political bias. Twitter and Facebook blasted Russian collusion for 3 years which turned out to be nothing. Can we retroactively block all of that “false and misleading information”??

    1. Thanks for rolling out what Putin hopes Americans will think, Steverino. Boy, Trump is making Putin’s job really hard. The lies are now utterly transparent.

    2. “Twitter and Facebook blasted Russian collusion for 3 years which turned out to be nothing.”

      Hey Steverino…you worried about continuing to get a check from the FSB?

      1. Roger/Tanner, glad to see that you aren’t afraid to even pretend to be sane. Book burners don’t even have to hide in the shadows these days. Enjoy your jobs at the Ministry of Truth ensuring that you protect me from free speech (which you justify because it’s the will of Russia). Thanks for your service. What would I do if I actually had to decide for myself what was news.

        1. That’s the spirit! Stiff upper lip as the ship goes down. Don’t admit the truth, ever, ever, ever, because that will change reality or something. The important thing is to keep pretending!

          Oh, and nice job of accusing other of what you are doing. Standard Stalinist technique. Trump does it all the time.

          1. Oh I’m consistent. Nothing should be censored by anyone, in any venue or any forum. In that respect I’m more progressive than you.

          2. If that’s so Steverino, are you willing to discuss the times you went cruising for kids with Jeffrey Epstein?

    3. Twitter can block who or what they want.

      As a supposed libertarian who respects the rights of private property without intervention, Twitter is paying in bandwidth and usage to host ANYTHING on there. It’s no different than ‘no shirt, no shoes, no service.’ Any person with intelligence a little bit of effort can create their own server and website, or find a hosting service.

      There seems to be this confusion among right wing groups of false equivalency. They don’t have to host any batshit propaganda no more than the atrocious Fox Corporation has to make fact based claims. And its total bullshit that Russia doesn’t create dummy accounts to argue and create propaganda on social media accounts. Not just last week I was on a broadcast with US Cyber Defense to show they do EXACTLY this. Stop speaking out of your ass and being ignorant of what you do no research on.

      And if someone doesn’t like what Twitter does? Go make your own competitor. That’s a very libertarian free market concept. Nowhere have I ever seen a libertarian claim there should be laws to force a private entity to let a random individual or organization use their private property. Believe it or not, there ARE servers and networking being utilized to host resources, it doesn’t come out of thin air, and the owner does NOT have to abide by what you think they should do.

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