Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul told Dr. Anthony Fauci that “one-size-fits-all” lockdowns are “kind of ridiculous” and blasted “wrong prediction(s)” during the White House coronavirus task force member’s Senate testimony Tuesday.
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“I don’t think any of us are certain when we do all these modelings–there have been more people wrong with modeling than right,” Paul said. “We’re opening up a lot of economies around the U.S., and I hope that people who are predicting doom and gloom, will admit that they were wrong if there isn’t a surge. Because I think that’s what’s going to happen.”
“In rural states, we never really reached any sort of pandemic levels, in Kentucky and other states,” the Kentucky senator added. “We have less deaths in Kentucky than we have in an average flu season. It’s not to say this isn’t deadly, but really, outside of New England, we’ve had a relatively benign course for this virus nationwide.”
Paul continued:
And I think that one-size-fits-all, that we’re gonna have a national strategy and nobody’s gonna go to school, is kind of ridiculous. We really ought to be doing it school district by school district, and the power needs to be dispersed, because, people make wrong predictions. And really, the history of this when we look back will be of wrong prediction after wrong prediction after wrong prediction, starting with Ferguson in England. So I think we ought to have a little bit of a humility in our belief that we know what’s best for the economy, and as much as I respect you, Dr. Fauci, I don’t think you’re the end-all. I don’t think you’re the one person that gets to make the decision. We can listen to your advice, but there are people on the other side saying there’s not going to be a surge and that we can safely open the economy, and the facts will bear this out.
He added that it would be a “huge mistake” to not send children back to school in the fall.
Fauci responded, saying that he has “never made” himself “out to be the end-all.”
“I’m a scientist, a physician, and a public health official. I give advice according to the best scientific evidence,” the doctor said. “There are a number of people that come into that and give advice that are more related to the number of things that you spoke about, about the need to get the country back open again and economically.”
“I don’t give advice about economic things, I don’t give advice about anything other than public health, so I wanted to respond to that,” Fauci continued.
Further, Fauci said that while it is true that children do a lot better than adults with the virus, there is still uncertainty with how the virus affects people under 18. (RELATED: Dr. Birx Reportedly Believes Coronavirus Death Toll Inflated By Up To 25%)
