Introduction:

The three blockbuster movies: “Outbreak,” “Contagion,” and “Pandemic” changed the way people viewed the healthcare system. In the movie “Outbreak,” a deadly virus spread throughout a camp and it involved a government cover up. The virus was transmitted through a monkey and scientists race to find a cure before it continues to spread globally. In the second movie “Contagion,” a deadly virus spreads and the world goes into a lockdown. It features restrictions like social distancing, masks, quarantine and the effects on individuals. The last movie, “Pandemic,” is centered around healthcare professionals trying to contain another deadly virus that created a global crisis. The movie captures the fear of individuals and challenges they face trying to contain it. All three movies are very similar with the same takeaways; government secrecy, poor public safety, breaking human rights, and heightened emotions. However, the biggest thing in common is how the virus impacts daily lives. These movies may be fiction, but all are similar to a historical pandemic just recently “Covid19”. Many theories out there contain misinformation about government secrecy from anti covid believers. One of them is Dr. Scott Atlas who spreads misinformation on how the government is intentionally ignoring the well being of children and teens. He joins Marissa Streit on her show “Real Talk,” where they dig deeper into Covid19 impacts on teens because of “reckless decisions” by the government. These false claims can be easily deduced by the Covid19 statistics and research. 

Evaluation of Dr. Scott Atlas

Before digging into claims made throughout the video, we’ll start with an evaluation of Dr. Scott Atlas. Dr. Scott Atlas is a widely known public speaker. In his collaboration with Marrisa Streit, Atlas speaks based on his opinions and only provides his view on Covid (see fig. 1). This can connect to attribution biases because Dr. Scott Atlas’s constant behavior can speak for itself. It consists of misinformation that he shares in talks, podcasts, speeches, ect. To explain this it’s important to discuss Atlas’ background so we can understand where he is coming from. He is known by many different titles: Radiologist, Neuroradiology professor, political figure, and health care advisor/public figure. His medical career consisted of teaching and being head of the Neuroradiology at Stanford University during the years 1998-2012. As a politician he was senior advisor for the republican party in 2008 and 2012. He supported ending affordable healthcare and altering the medicaid program. On August 10, 2020, President Donald Trump had announced Atlas was joining the Trump Administration as a Covid-19 health advisor. Yet, Atlas was a radiology specialist and not a public health specialist. Other health care professions have voiced their opinions about Atlas. Dr. Ashish Jha, the head of Brown University School of Public Health department, claims, “He’s an MRI guy […] He has no expertise in any of this stuff,” (NPR). People have started to question if Atlas should be  spreading information on topics when he isn’t a professional in that area.

Throughout his time with the Trump Administration, he had opposing viewpoints of fellow scientists like Dr. Anthony Fucci who was a specialist in public health. Atlas announced he was leaving the Administration due to difference of opinions. This led to how Stanford University released a press conference explaining how they will be distancing themselves from Dr. Scott Atlas. Atlas decided to step down as a public health advisor in December 2020. One of the main reasons for his decision was, “As a special government employee, Atlas had a 130-day window in which he could serve”(CNN). Various faculty members had celebrated his resignation and claimed it was “long overdue and underscores the triumph of science and truth over falsehoods and misinformation” (CNN). This quote is important because it signifies how many people think that Atlas undermines the success of  the lockdown and the vaccine. He has “repeatedly been at odds with the nation’s leading health officials regarding his views on how to combat the spread of the virus” (NPR). Dr. Scott Atlas had been risking the lives of Americans by voicing his opinion to ignore health guidelines and restrictions. According to an article by CNN, “he criticized coronavirus restrictions in Michigan, urging residents in the state to “rise up” against the measure” (CNN). He has influenced many Americans to not get the vaccine and his influence has led to protests. As you can see with this evidence, it’s very obvious where Dr. Scott Atlas stands on how the government’s response “recklessly” to the virus.

Dr. Scott Atlas and Marissa Streit discuss Covid19 conspiracies. (PragerU) 

Schools closed to prevent the spread of Covid19 and to save lives. 

Dr. Scott Atlas’ first claim said, “[as data shows] Sweden and Finland and elsewhere, early on in spring/summer 2020 […] [that] open schools did not have a higher rate of infection than closed schools” (25:18). This claim is partially true because at the beginning of the pandemic, the confirmed cases were low. Atlas repeatedly tries to justify that having schools open “did not increase the infection rate of the community” (25:38). At the start of the 2020-2021 school year, cases were record high. An article by ABC News announces, “[On] March 27: The U.S. surpasses 100,000 total cases” (ABC News). This was right as the virus was first exposed to the public and it continued to get worse. It led to President Donald Trump calling a nation wide emergency. Atlas and others thought that the lockdown wasn’t necessary. An article by Washington Post states, “Just as hospitals never close, schools should never close for some students, and for most they should be last to close and first to open” (Washington Post). Sources like Washington Post News started comparing how hospitals stayed open so schools should have. However, this claim is controversial because hospitals had to be open to help deal with Covid19 and schools could easily be able to function online. This explains how many people believe that schools should have reopened, but fail to look at the data of rising cases and deaths during Covid. 

Scientists believe the opposite, that without the lockdown and school closings there would have been a large difference of death and new cases. Samir Bhatt, who is a scholar at the Imperial College London’s School of Public Health states, “Without [the lockdowns] we believe the toll would have been huge” (NPR). Multiple sources have agreed that closing down schools helped prevent a huge amount of deaths. Soloman Hsiang, administrator of the Global Policy Lab claims, “[The lockdown] averted tens of millions of additional infections and millions of deaths”(NPR). Atlas goes on to say, “Schools do not increase the infection rate of the community” (25:38). The Minnesota Department of Health Department discusses disagreeing  ideas: “What we’re seeing in terms of the number of cases-if we compare it to the same time last year, we are well above a doubling and tripling of what we were seeing a year ago at this time”(Minnpost). A study done by Our World In Data provides information that Covid19 cases were the highest between September 2021 to March 2022 (see fig. 2). This article was published in September 2021 and discussed how the data showed the Covid19 cases were tripling. Atlas continues to debate how there was no actual evidence, but this article undermines his statement. Dr. Scott Atlas continues to say, “Teachers were not at high risk” so schools should have stayed open. He brings up the factor that teachers weren’t at high risk of dying, but that doesn’t mean they were scared. In context, Altas is trying to say they aren’t at high risk. Is this a high risk of dying? Are teachers not at high risk of getting COVID-19? There are two ways to few the situation and he never clarified what he meant by high risk. According to the National Library of Medicine, “Teachers have a high prevalence of high levels of depression, anxiety and stress” (National Library of Medicine). Not only did Dr. Scott Atlas claimed that teachers should just go back; he didn’t mention anything about the mental effect Covid19 had on them. Therefore, schools were closed to prevent the rising of cases and to help teachers/students heal. Closing schools gave teachers a way to gradually adjust to the pandemic and help prevent a gigantic increase of deaths. 

Covid19 Cases in the US between 2020-2023 (Our World in Data).

Children are not at high risk of dying, but can still get the virus. 

The next claim we will discuss is, “Children were not of course at high risk” (27:04). Before he says this, he provides context to readers: “[the rate of] children that died in the United States was extremely low” (27:28). This claim is partially right, as data has shown the numbers of Covid19 kids deaths compared to older individuals weren’t even close. According to ABC News, “[United States Citizens] aged 65 and older make up 92% of all deaths from [Covid19]”(ABC News). It clearly states elderly people are at higher risk than children. Marrisa Streit clarifies, “Children who were not symptomatic were very dangerous because they could possibly carry it and kill the elderly” (24:59). Her claim can be supported with articles about the spread of human to human contact. One article by WebMD reports, “People infected with the virus can be contagious and can spread [Covid19] even if they don’t have symptoms” (WebMD). This can be problematic because the World Health Organization published that there were 110 million confirmed cases. This can explain how the government had to take severe measures to make sure that Covid19 doesn’t spread as rapidly.

This was one of the biggest challenges the government faced. The government had to decide if the benefits would outweigh the risk. Would a lockdown save lives? Or would it destroy the economy? An article from the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy reported: “Once US schools reopened in fall 2020, children contributed more to [spreading] within-household transmission [then] when they were in school, and less during summer and winter breaks.” Children were one of the biggest contributors of the spread of Covid19. Atlas’ claim is mostly incorrect because he never specified that being high risk means dying. Atlas goes on to say in 2020, “Zero healthy children died [of Covid] in Germany” (27:18). Why is Dr. Scott Atlas providing information about Germany? The World Health Organization did a study and it showed that, “In 2020 an estimated 5 million children under the age of 5 years died, mostly from preventable and treatable causes”(World Health Organization). However, Children can be at high risk of testing positive for Covid and spreading it. Schools have decided to take action against the spread of Covid between children. According to the National Library of Medicine, “One way to reduce contacts is to separate infectious individuals from the general population”(National Library of Medicine). The United States stopped the spread by quarantining individuals for 14 days. The government and health advisories decided to do this in schools as well.  Students would have to quarantine for 14 days if they tested positive. Dr. Scott Atlas describes how he is against the “lockdowns [because] they are extraordinarily harmful” to the population and economy (42:43). He included information about how it was completely useless and that kids were not at high risk during the pandemic. This spurious claim was easily disproved by using research on how Covid19 affected kids.

The vaccine is the safest option to protect children from Covid19. 

During the fourth claim we will be discussing, Dr. Scott Atlas and Marrisa Streit transition into stating how the government is purposefully hurting kids. In context, Atlas states,”it’s the big sin what we [as] a society did to children” (55:13). He is referring to how Covid19 has hurt them in many gigantic ways. We will now move onto Atlas’s claims: “[We are] harming our children as a society and injecting for instance experimental drugs into children that have side effects” (55:36). This claim is partially right, but he took it out of context. The vaccine is still experimental because it was just released. According to an article published by Yale Medicine: “In December 2020, Pfizer-BioNTech’s Phase 3 clinical data for its original vaccine showed 95% efficacy for preventing symptoms [of the virus]”(Yale Medicine). It states that the first vaccine came out during 2020, which was the start of the pandemic. This vaccine however has a pretty high efficacy rate that ranges between 90-95% between the three vaccines; Moderna, Pfizer, and Novavax. Many questions have been brought to the surface about if it is safe or are they putting poison in our bodies? This follows Atlas’ belief in government secrecy as well. The article goes on to say more on the other two vaccines plus another one that was discontinued because of negative side effects. Marrisa Streit voices her concerns on if children aren’t high risk why are they supposed to get a vaccine? Well as stated prior, everyone is considered at high risk of getting Covid, but not necessarily dying from it.  Dr. Scott Atlas reports: “Healthy children did not have significant risk [and] [we] use them as shields”(55:55). He is trying to say how they are metaphorically “shields” in our society. He believes we are using them as test subjects for the vaccines. This leads to how Dr. Scott Atlas tells his viewers, “You know forcing them to vaccinate is unnecessary” (55:41). Atlas claims that the government knows that children don’t need to be vaccinated, but are harming them anyways.  He continues to bring up controversial conversations that leave parents wondering if they should vaccinate their kids. 

Dr. Scott Atlas has been spreading misinformation on how harmful the vaccine is to kids. In this video, he repeatedly tries to prove that the government isn’t telling us the risk of vaccines and that it’s not actually safe for kids. The government has actually warned society about the risks. However, Atlas focuses on the viewpoint about vaccines being bad for kids. Dr. Joanne Loethen, who is a pediatric physician in Kansas City, Missouri claims: “Parents who now have to deal with the after effects of a child with COVID-19 would’ve jumped on the vaccine in a heartbeat”(American Medical Association). Many sources have reported that parents who have suffered  losing a child or struggling with side effects from the virus, wish they would have given them the vaccine. A study done by HealthyChildren.org explains that: “[a study showed] 52% of teens and young adults between […] experience lingering symptoms 6 months after having COVID”(HealthyChildren.org). These lasting effects can consist of fatigue, cough, headaches, shortness of breath, heart problems, loss of taste/smell, ect. The news source, CNN reported that “Vaccinating [our kids] clearly is [the] best option right now and the benefits clearly outweigh the risks, Better safe than sorry”(CNN). CNN is recommending that the best thing to do is to vaccinate your kids so that they can stay safe. Atlas’s last claim on the vaccine was: “The government [is telling] the public […] that there’s no protection other than the vaccine” (29:44). Evidence from the National Library of Medicine interviewed different parents’ views on Covid19 and one respondent states: “Let [kids] immune system play its role because, as I told you before, it is not a fatal disease and will not kill the children”(National Library of Medicine). Many parents believe this, but when a kid’s immune system isn’t strong it can lead to them getting really sick. During the pandemic, many illnesses were going around like; flu, measles, RSV, ect. All of these illnesses weaken kids’ immune systems and lead to kids having a higher risk of getting the virus. The biggest reason however to have kids take the vaccine is: “Vaccines can also reduce the impact of COVID-19 infection in children, by putting them in a safer condition to socialize normally both with their peers and older persons” (National Library of Medicine). Lastly, public health officials’ biggest concern is that Covid could mutate into different strands. The American Medical Association suggested that: “A failure to vaccinate children—which would allow the virus to spread freely in a large part of the population—could increase the possibility that new variants emerge”(American Medical Association). Which is one of the reasons that the government is pushing vaccinating kids so that they could return back to school and slow down the spread. Dr. Scott Atlas’s claim about the government using them as test subjects and the vaccine isn’t safe for them was easily disproved with research. 

Teachers are not responsible for keeping kids out of school, but instead it was the unions.

For Dr. Scotts Atlas’s final claim that we will debunk: “Teachers, they broke every ethical and moral responsibility they had to teach our kids” (59:08). He is blaming teachers for the negative effects of Covid19 on Kids. Atlas and Marrisa Streit discuss how kids’ mental health were affected during the quarantine and distance learning at home. The first loss that Atlas states is, “[Covid19] was extremely harmful to learning loss”  (57:56). Which is true because a study by Brown University, showed that students tested lower by, “13 percentage points lower in math and 8 percentage points lower in reading” compared to years fully in person (PBS). Many people blame the government for keeping kids out of school and the teachers for not wanting to go back. Not only did Atlas make claims about learning loss on children, but also an effect on children’s mental health as well. Dr. Scott Atlas claims that, “there was an explosion of psychiatric illness in teenagers and college kids, from the isolation not the virus, (58:22)”. This claim is mostly true unlike some of his other wild claims. The National Library of Medicine states, “[Kids have an] escalating fear of contracting [the virus] [..] [which causes] an increase in irritability, sleep disorders, anxiety and depression” (National Library of Medicine). This is all because how alone and scared during the pandemic with no control on what happens next. This brings us to why many people turn to blaming teachers because they don’t understand how important it was to go into lockdown. 

Atlas only uses his personal experiences to show viewers what they should know about how the government has controlled everything about the pandemic. Dr. Scott Atlas claims, “Teachers, they broke every ethical and moral responsibility they had to teach our kids” (59:08). He describes that teachers failed to properly keep children safe and teach them from home. Many teachers have spoken up against the flat out claims that they are going against their morals of protecting their students. Cheryl Bost, the president of the Maryland State Education Association reported: “[As the teachers] see the cases rise, [and] we don’t see an investment in health and safety protocols that are needed, educators don’t feel like they’re being heard.” Teachers have spoken out that they don’t feel like it’s safe enough for them to go back and the government is ignoring them. They were trying to do everything in their ability to help their students the best they could through distance learning. Dr. Scott Atlas doesn’t even mention why they don’t want to go, but instead spreading misinformation about it. Katharine Strunk, a professor at Michigan State University who studies education labor markets assures the readers that: “The unions have made it pretty clear that they do not want teachers back in school buildings until they’re 100 percent sure they’re safe”(Education Week). Society believes the lie that teachers are keeping kids out of school, but it is actually the unions instead. This all relates to Atlas’s claim about how teachers are ignoring their job to protect their students. Yet, the teachers wanted to return to the classroom sooner, but the unions kept them home. The unions were focused on keeping teachers safe and to prevent the spread of Covid19. To summarize, teachers did not break their moral responsibilities because they did everything they could, but the unions were keeping them out of schools.

Conclusion:

The movies “Outbreak” and “Contagion” portray an image of government secrecy, just like the real life pandemic: Covid19. This pandemic created many new diverse viewpoints that consisted of vaccines, masks, lockdown, school closing, ect. Some conspiracy theories have reached the point that are super dangerous and have taken over social media since the beginning in 2020. Many believe the theory that the government is responsible for everything that happened during the pandemic and they were morally hurting children during it. They think that Covid19 should have been treated like every other virus and they shouldn’t have taken such big measures. With all this information out there it is important to debunk the theories like these ones that involve misinformation. Dr. Scott Atlas provided many claims that did not have evidence and were taken out of context. With how fast a virus can spread and the amount of death rate that came with it. The government had to do something quickly and most people believe it was the right thing to do. To conclude, I will leave you with this quote, “The single biggest threat to man’s continued dominance on the planet is the virus” (Outbreak Movie). No matter what anyone can do, a virus can be deadly. The government needs to take precautions that are right at the moment.