Dr. Anthony Fauci and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul clashed at a Senate hearing on Wednesday about the nation’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Sen. Paul claimed the death toll from the coronavirus–which now stands at over 200,000–would be the same if governors never implemented shutdown orders.
“Is man really capable of altering the course of infectious disease through crowd control? The statistics answer a resounding no,” Paul said after rambling about the death rate in Sweden and Hong Kong.
“How can we possibly be jumping up and down and saying, ‘Oh, Gov. Cuomo did a great job.’ He had the worst death rate in the world,” Paul said.
“No, you misconstrued that senator and you’ve done that repetitively in the past,” Dr. Fauci said. “They got hit very badly and they make some mistakes…the things that are going on in New York to get their test positivity 1% or less is because they are looking at the guidelines we have put together from the task force of the four or five things of mask, social distancing, outdoors more than indoors, avoiding crowds and washing hands.”
“Or they develop enough community immunity that they are no longer having the pandemic because they have enough immunity in New York City to actually stop it,” Paul quipped.
Fauci demanded he be given more time to respond “because this happens with Sen. Paul all the time.”
“You are not listening to what the director of the CDC said that in New York it’s about 22 per cent [community immunity],” Fauci said. “If you believe 22 per cent is herd immunity, I believe you’re alone in that.”
