Coronavirus live updates: Fauci warns that we’re in ’a race between the vaccine and the virus’
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the first senator to contract covid-19 at the start of the pandemic, challenged Fauci on why people who had the virus or the vaccine still have to wear masks, accusing the doctor of “theater.”
“Here we go again with the theater. Let’s get down to the facts,” Fauci said firmly during a hearing on the pandemic before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Thursday.
As Fauci continued, Paul interjected: “And what can you point to that shows reinfection? There are no studies that show this.”
“Let me finish the response to your question, if you please,” Fauci said. “When you talk about reinfection, and you don’t keep in the concept of variance, that’s an entirely different ballgame. That’s a good reason for a mask.”
The two went back and forth, with Paul insisting that there is no evidence of reinfection for people who had already been infected or vaccinated, and Fauci explaining that Paul was not “hearing what I’m saying about variants.”
“So you want people to wear masks for another couple of years? Now you’ve been vaccinated, and you parade around in two masks for show,” Paul said. “You want to get rid of vaccine hesitancy to wear masks? Tell them they can quit wearing the mask after the vaccine … give them a reward instead of telling them the nanny state is going to be there for three more years, and you’ve got to wear a mask forever.”
“Let me just state for the record that masks are not theater. Masks are protective,” Fauci said.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who was next up to speak, began by praising Fauci.
“Dr. Fauci, thank you for setting an example,” Murphy said. “Over the course of the last year for Americans, you have made it clear that masks save lives. And the example that you have set that has not been followed by other leaders in this country has made a difference, has kept tens if not hundreds of thousands of Americans from contracting this disease.”
Later, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) weighed in on the spat between Paul and Fauci.
“I have had covid, and I’ve been vaccinated, and I wear masks to make other people feel safer, even if there weren’t variants,” he said.
