Two California doctors who called for an end to stay-at-home orders are receiving blowback from others in their field, and a video of the pair discussing their findings has been removed from YouTube.
Drs. Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi, who co-own Accelerated Urgent Care facilities in Kern County, have administered more than 5,000 coronavirus tests and said the virus is not more deadly than the seasonal flu. They recommended in a recent press conference that stay-at-home orders across the country be lifted.
The American College of Emergency Physicians and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine, however, “emphatically” condemned their findings in a statement.
“These reckless and untested musings do not speak for medical societies and are inconsistent with current science and epidemiology regarding COVID-19. As owners of local urgent care clinics, it appears these two individuals are releasing biased, non-peer-reviewed data to advance their personal financial interests without regard for the public’s health,” their Monday statement read.
It continued: “COVID-19 misinformation is widespread and dangerous. Members of ACEP and AAEM are first-hand witnesses to the human toll that COVID-19 is taking on our communities. ACEP and AAEM strongly advise against using any statements of Drs. Erickson and Massihi as a basis for policy and decision making.”
Erickson and Massihi garnered attention from the media and others for their claims, and nearly 5.5 million people have watched their video since last week. YouTube, however, removed the video from the platform Monday “for violating YouTube’s Terms of Service.”
The video featured the two doctors discussing why the United States should reopen the economy based on their findings working on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic. The footage even grabbed the attention of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
Docs make good points https://t.co/WeXuZpMghY
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 26, 2020
“If you study the numbers in 2017 and 2018, we had 50 to 60 million with the flu,” Erickson said in the video. “And we had a similar death rate in the deaths the United States were 43,545 — similar to the flu of 2017-2018. We always have between 37,000 and 60,000 deaths in the United States, every single year. No pandemic talk. No shelter in place. No shutting down businesses.”
“Do we need to still shelter in place? Our answer is emphatically no,” he said last week. “Do we need businesses to be shut down? Emphatically no. Do we need to test them and get them back to work? Absolutely.”
Erickson added, “If you’re going to dance on someone’s constitutional rights, you better have a good reason, you better have a really good reason, not just a theory. The data is showing us it’s time to lift (the stay-at-home orders), so if we don’t lift, what is the reason?”
YouTube did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
