Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul took another shot Wednesday at Dr. Anthony Fauci's insistence that vaccinated people should continue to wear masks before suggesting that President Joe Biden "burn" his in order to promote coronavirus vaccines.
"You might get run over by a car, you might get hit by a meteor," Paul told Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum during a Wednesday afternoon "The Story" appearance. "The science is about proving that things are happening. If Dr. Fauci can prove that people who are vaccinated are spreading the disease, I will listen to him. If he can prove that people like me who have already had it are spreading the disease, I'll listen to him. But there is no evidence of that."
“If you want more people to get vaccinated, Joe Biden should go on national TV, take his mask off, and burn it," he continued. "Light a torch to it and burn his mask and say, 'I’ve had the vaccine, I am now safe from this plague. If you'll get the vaccine, you can be safe too.'"
Sen. Rand Paul: "If Dr. Fauci can prove that people who are vaccinated are spreading the disease, I'll listen to him ... but there is no evidence of that. If you want more people to be vaccinated, Joe Biden should go on national TV, take his mask off, and burn it." pic.twitter.com/kpIRTaiSos
— Scott Morefield (@SKMorefield) April 21, 2021
Calling the current establishment position "fear-mongering," Paul insisted the "burden of proof should be on the government to prove we are spreading it."
The libertarian-leaning Kentucky senator, who has famously crossed swords with Fauci before on the absurdity of post-vaccine masking, went on to discuss the thousands who have gotten infected after being vaccinated, a number that sounds scary unless you put it in context with the tens of millions who have been vaccinated against the virus.
PBS reports:
In data released Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that at least 5,800 people had fallen ill or tested positive for the coronavirus two weeks or more after they completed both doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine.
A total of about 78 million Americans are now fully vaccinated.
These so-called breakthrough infections occurred among people of all ages. Just over 40% were in people age 60 or older, and 65% occurred in women. Twenty-nine percent of infected people reported no symptoms, but 7% were hospitalized and just over 1%, 74 people, died, according to the CDC.
Public health officials have said breakthrough infections were expected, since manufacturers have warned loudly and often that the vaccines are not 100% protective. The Pfizer and Moderna versions have consistently been shown to be above 90% effective, most recently for at least six months. Studies have also shown they are nearly 100% effective at ensuring that the small fraction of vaccinated patients who do contract the virus will not get severe cases or require hospitalization.
Given those odds, highlighting those fairly minuscule risks in order to maintain costly and ineffective measures like forced masking and lockdowns at the expense of public confidence in vaccines and a return to normal life seems absurd to many, and yet Fauci and our other medical overlords seem to have an almost cult-like devotion to it.
Biden, of course, a man who wears fourteen masks even while outside dozens of feet away from a single soul, isn't about to give up his safety blanket anytime soon either, reminding Americans yet again to continue to "mask up."
Pres. Biden says that Americans need to keep wearing masks "until the number of cases go down, until everyone has a chance to get their shot." pic.twitter.com/IaZYCc9Mcw
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) April 21, 2021
