Did a group of hundreds of doctors sign a letter urging President Trump to end the COVID-19 shutdowns?
Sunday, May 24, 2020
By Eric Smith
Copy link
Copy featured image
YES
A letter to President Trump signed by at least 500 physicians warned of "exponentially growing negative health consequences" from measures taken to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus across the country.
The top signature was from Dr. Simone Gold, a California emergency medicine specialist. In an interview with The Hill, she said she didn't want to be seen as political, and was merely concerned about the negative medical impacts of the shutdown. The Hill reported that Jenny Beth Martin, the cofounder of Tea Party Patriots, helped organize the effort to get the letter to the White House.
Authority to begin or end the shutdowns rests with state and local officials.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
FACT BRIEF BY
