Florida Governor Ron DeSantis warned at a Monday press conference that his state will “never do any” lockdowns associated with COVID-19 again. He made the proclamation during a series of discussions he spoke at with President Donald Trump’s newest coronavirus task force doctor Scott Atlas, who supported DeSantis and reiterated that the shutdowns have proved more harmful overall, than other efforts to mitigate the novel virus and protect the most vulnerable.

DeSantis and Atlas spoke at a series of press conferences in Tallahassee, The Villages and Tampa, addressing the state’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak and the need for children to return to school.

“You go back to the beginning of June, end of July, people said you have to shut down Florida, it will be exponential it will never go down,” said DeSantis, as he recalled the controversy over his decision to reopen the state.

“I looked at the life cycle of the virus and different regions of the world, different regions of the United States and I said no, if we focus on protecting those most vulnerable, if the folks, particularly at the nursing homes, if other folks take the basic precautions that we preach about avoiding some of the riskier behaviors…that we would be able to get through it minimizing the harm to society.”

DeSantis, who noted that the nightclubs and pubs are still closed, said the state will address how to reopen those businesses. He said the state gained 70,000 private-sector jobs.

“We will never do any of these lockdowns again,” he added. “And I hear people say we’ll shutdown the country and honestly I cringe because we know places that have done that and the most draconian lock down in the world has been Peru, military enforced since March, they have the highest per capita mortality in the world from COVID.”

He added, “at best what a lockdown will do is delay, but not reduce the ultimate mortality but I think Dr. Atlas would agree it creates a lot of other problems with mortality that a lot of other people don’t necessarily focus on.”

Atlas reiterated that children must return to school, stating that it is more harmful to their overall health and psychological well-being to keep them locked up in their homes out of unnecessary fear.

“We are the only country of our peer nations in the Western world who are so hysterical about reopening schools,” said Dr. Scott Atlas, who became a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force in August. “We seem to be the only country willing to sacrifice our children out of fear.”

We have the data,” said Atlas. “There is extraordinarily low risk to children.”