Strict lockdowns pushed by White House advisers Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx failed to stop the vulnerable dying from COVID-19, while families suffered and children lost out on their education, according to a forthcoming book by Trump adviser Dr. Scott Atlas.
His is the latest contribution to unpicking how the Trump administration responded to the pandemic.
And the former Stanford radiologist offers an unsparing account of dysfunction and political paralysis that allowed Trump's two most high-profile scientific advisers to publicly contradict the president and hijack the response.
'A Plague Upon Our House: My Fight at the Trump White House to Stop COVID from Destroying America,' is published on November 23 by Bombardier.
'People were dying from the virus, and the lockdown policies were not preventing the deaths,' he writes in a copy obtained by DailyMail.com
'The simple logic of assuming you could stop the spread of, and some said eliminate, a highly contagious virus by shutting down society after millions had been infected was worse than nonsensical.
'The idea of stopping all businesses and closing schools while quarantining healthy young people at little risk from a disease in order to protect those aged seventy and over - that is simply irrational.'
His account will reignite some of the most contentious debates of the past year over how to handle COVID-19, and attract fresh accusations that he is peddling misinformation.
In a new book, Dr Scott Atlas accuses coronavirus advisers Drs Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx of sticking to 'irrational' lockdown policies that failed to protect vulnerable Americans
Atlas accuses the scientists around Trump - specifically Fauci and Birx - of implementing policies that harmed children and families by closing schools and families
Atlas's book, 'A Plague Upon Our House: My Fight at the Trump White House to Stop COVID from Destroying America,' is published by Bombardier Books on Nov 23
Although the U.S. has made progress with vaccinations, the death toll is still ticking up and currently stands at more than three quarters of a million people.
Atlas was a divisive and controversial figure as soon as he was brought into the White House in August last year, apparently as a bulwark to the influence of Fauci and Birx.
Critics said he was appointed more for his appearances on Fox News than any infectious disease expertise he would have picked up as a radiologist.
He had already published essays arguing that lockdowns were harming public health through their impacts on missed medical appointments, the harm of school closures, mental health effects and other negative outcomes.
And his book describes how he repeatedly clashed with Birx and Fauci - the public face of the White House response.
Not only were their lockdowns harming the economy, he says, but they failed to protect America's most vulnerable people.
'By the time I arrived, lockdowns had already been implemented throughout the country for months—including strict business restrictions and school closures as well as quarantines of healthy, asymptomatic
