Angry Dr. Fauci says vaccinated people are still at risk from variants after Sen. Rand Paul accuses him of wearing two masks just for show after having had his shots
- Paul told Fauci he parades around in masks ‘for show’
- ‘You want to get rid of vaccine hesitancy? Tell them they can get rid of their masks after their vaccine’
- Paul told him masks for those who have been vaccinated were ‘theater’ and complained about a ‘nanny state’
- Infectious disease expert Fauci stated that masks are ‘not theater’
- Fauci warned of the dangers of contagious new variants
- Paul infuriated some of his colleagues when he went about his business while awaiting test results. He was the first senator to test positive for covid-19
Infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony got into a heated clash with Sen. Rand Paul on Thursday after Paul said it amounted to ‘political theater’ when people including Fauci wore masks despite being vaccinated.
Fauci, 80, who advises President Joe Biden on battling the coronavirus, shot back and defended his view that there is not yet sufficient information about the transmissibility of the virus that has killed more than 500,000 Americans.
‘I totally disagree with you,’ he told Paul after the senator lectured him.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky blasted government guidance that people who have been vaccinated continue to wear masks. He called it ‘theater’ – although experts say it is to provide protection from spreading dangerous new variants
Paul, who was the first senator to test positive for the virus last year, and who infuriated some of his colleagues by going about his Senate business even after he got tested and was awaiting results, went after the current government guidance.
He said people might be more inclined to get vaccinated if they would gain the ability to ditch their masks once they went through with getting one.
‘You’re defying everything we know about immunity by telling you to wear masks we’ve been vaccinated,’ said Paul, who is an opthalmologist.
‘Instead you should be saying: there is no science to say we’re going to have a problem from the large number of people you vaccinated. You want to get rid of vaccine hesitancy? Tell them they can quit wearing their mask after they get the vaccine. You want people to get the vaccine? Give them a reward instead of telling them that the nanny state is going to be there for three more years and you got to wear a mask forever,’ he said.
‘I totally disagree with you,’ Fauci told Paul after the senator lectured him
‘If you have immunity, they’re theater,’ said Paul
President Joe Biden has urged Americans to wear masks for 100 days to gain control of the virus
White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who has been vaccinated, wears a mask when approaching the podium at the White House briefing room, but removes it for her remarks
‘People don’t want to hear it, there’s no science behind it,’ Paul said.
‘Well, let me just state for the record that masks are not theater. Masks are protective,’ Fauci said.
‘If you have immunity, they’re theater,’ said Paul. ‘If you already have immunity you’re wearing a mask to give comfort to others,’ he said.
‘I totally disagree with you,’ said Fauci, who advised President Trump during the start of the pandemic and revealed that he chafed at times in the role.
Fauci said dangerous new variants of the virus, including a more transmissible one that came from Great Britain, could still pose a risk to people who have previously been infected from different strains.
The threat posed by mutations is the reason the CDC continues to advise people to wear masks when in public settings and with others – although it revised guidance to say people who have been vaccinated can remove masks when meeting small groups of other vaccinated people or with family members within the home.
Said Fauci: ‘In the South African study conducted by [Johnson & Johnson], they found that people who were infected with wild type and were exposed to the variant in South Africa, the 351, it was as if they had never been infected before, they had no protection.’
Scientists still don’t know how long expected immunity would last with the novel coronavirus that has killed more than 2 million worldwide.
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