By Wilson Wong - NBC News
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer criticized Scott Atlas, one of the president's top advisers, Donald Trump, in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, after he claimed on Twitter on Sunday that the citizens of that state should "stand up" against the new restrictions adopted to prevent the uncontrolled spread of the coronavirus.
"The only way this stops is if people rise up against the new measures," Atlas wrote.
“You get what you accept.
#LibertadMatters #StepUp ”.
Whitmer, a frequent political target of Trump and his supporters, accused the president last month of encouraging "internal terrorism" against public officials working to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
She noted that Trump's criticism of her prompted the president's supporters to recite the slogan "lock her up" at one of their rallies just days after law enforcement foiled a plot to kidnap her.
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Whitmer said in an interview with MSNBC on Monday that she was taken aback by Atlas's tweet.
"It really took my breath away, to tell the truth," he said, "we are in the middle of the worst weeks of this pandemic. We have been going through this for nine months and right now the numbers are so bad that we have to take aggressive action."
"With the leadership vacuum in Washington, DC, state governors must do what we can to save lives," said Whitmer.
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In an interview Monday on NBC, Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious disease expert, said Atlas's comments were wrong: "I totally disagree with him."
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Atlas's tweet came shortly after the Michigan Governor announced a new order to partially close places like restaurants, schools and bars;
State officials report that the increase in cases could cause 1,000 deaths per week in that state.
The three-week directive, which also limits family gatherings and extends the mandate for mandatory use of masks for gatherings both indoors and outdoors, comes at a time when coronavirus cases are spreading out of control across the country.
On Sunday, the United States exceeded 11 million infections.
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In September, NBC News reported that the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, in English), Robert Redfield, had hinted that everything that Atlas says "is false."
Redfield suggested that Atlas, a neuroradiologist with no experience in infectious diseases or public health, was misleading Trump and the public with misinformation about the effectiveness of face masks and the potential benefits of herd immunity, contrary to the advice of many experts in infectious diseases and state health officials.
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This is not the first time that Atlas has come under fire for his comments on Twitter.
Last month he falsely claimed on that social network that masks did not prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
That tweet was deleted and replaced with a note that read "This tweet is not available," and it led to company rules and policies that spell out why and how you decide to remove or limit certain posts.
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Whitmer added that the new restrictions will help contain deaths from the coronavirus in the state.
"We will lose another 20,000 people here in Michigan between now and mid-February if we don't take aggressive action now," he warned, "so for three weeks, we're going to tighten things up, close the hatches and try to bring everyone up to speed. of the challenge that we have before us ”.