President Donald Trump expanded his coronavirus task force this week with the addition of Scott Atlas, MD, a senior fellow with Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
The president introduced Dr. Atlas at a White House briefing Monday. "He's working with us and will be working with us on the coronavirus. And he has many great ideas and he thinks what we've done is really good. And now we'll take it to a new level," the president said.
Five things to know about Dr. Atlas:
1. As a senior fellow with the conservative Hoover Institution in Stanford, Calif., Dr. Atlas investigates the impact of government and the private sector on access, quality, and pricing in healthcare, global trends in healthcare innovation, and key economic issues related to the future of technology-based medical advances.
2. He earned his undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and his medical degree from the University of Chicago School of Medicine.
3. He is board certified in diagnostic radiology and served as a professor and chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center from 1998 to 2012, according to Forbes.
4. Dr. Atlas is involved in efforts to reopen schools and so far his stance on the matter aligns with that of President Trump. "We know that the risk of the disease is extremely low for children, even less than that of seasonal flu. We know that the harms of locking out the children from school are enormous. And we also know, as we all would agree, that educating America's children is right at the top of the list for our nation's priorities," he said at a White House event Wednesday.
5. Researchers are still studying the effects of the virus on children and their rate of transmission. A study published in JAMA Pediatrics last month found infected children have at least as much of the coronavirus in their noses and throats as infected adults, according to the research.