Dr. Rand Paul to Dr. Fauci: Science shows schools SHOULD reopen

[Marilyn Calkins]

Senator slams 'ridiculous' one-size-fits-all national approach to coronavirus

 

At a virtual Senate committee hearing Tuesday on the government's response to the coronavirus pandemic, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., challenged Dr. Anthony Fauci's belief that this fall might be too soon for schools to reopen.

 

Paul began his questioning by having Fauci affirm – contrary to the World Health Organization's claim – there is substantial evidence that, like most infectious diseases, people infected with the coronavirus develop an immunity to it.

The Kentucky senator, a practicing physician, then pointed to data from New York that the case-fatality rate for people infected with the coronavirus is near zero for children and 10 in 100,000 for people ages 18 to 45.

On the issue of going back to school, he told the panel that "left out of the discussion is the mortality."

"Shouldn't we at least be discussing what the mortality of children is?" he asked.

Paul said the "one-size-fits-all" national strategy – that "nobody is going to go to school" – "is kind of ridiculous."

"We really ought to be doing it school district by school district," he told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

And the power needs to be disbursed, he said, "because people make wrong predictions."

"I think it's going to be a huge mistake if we don't open up the schools in the fall," Paul said.

The senator said that in the future, the history of the pandemic will be marked by "wrong prediction after wrong prediction after wrong prediction, starting with Ferguson in England."

The reference was to Dr. Neil Ferguson's dire prediction that as many as 2.2 million Americans and 500,000 Britons would die, which Fauci and coronavirus team member Dr. Deborah Birx presented to President Trump to convince him to advise the lockdowns.

"So, I think we really ought to have a little humility, really in our belief that we know what's best for the economy," Paul said.

"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 who gets to make the decision. We can listen to your advice, but there are people on the other side saying there is not going to be a surge, and we can safely open the economy," he said.

The Kentucky Republican insisted "the facts will bear this out."

"But if we keep kids out of school for another year, what's going to happen is the poor and underprivileged kids who don't have a parent that's able to teach them at home are not going to learn for a full year," he warned, advising that the U.S. look at "the Swedish model."

 

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