Dr. Anthony Fauci, by not ruling out further COVID-19 restrictions over the disease's latest variant, is "misinterpreting the data," Sen. Rand Paul said Thursday on Newsmax.
"If you look at the data right now, we have the lowest amount of people getting infected each day," the Kentucky Republican said on Newsmax's "National Report." "If you look at the data, we have the lowest amount of people in the intensive care unit. If you look at the data, we have the lowest amount of people dying since the pandemic began. So really, what we're seeing is the waning ebb of the pandemic, not a resurgence, not a surge."
Fauci, who is now President Joe Biden's chief medical adviser on COVID-19, said in an ABC News interview that he doesn't think there will be more restrictions, but "you always have to have the flexibility."
However, Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN late last week that Americans could experience more lockdowns as the omicron subvariant BA.2 spreads.
Paul told Newsmax that Fauci is the "eternal pessimist," but none of the mitigation standards, including forcing people to remain 6 feet apart, putting up plexiglass, or even masks worked to stop the spread of COVID-19.
"The only thing that's working is immunity and we're getting immunity from the vaccine and also from the disease," Paul said. "If you take a measurement of 1,000 random people from anywhere in America, and you say, do you have antibodies? Do they have antibodies to either the virus?"
This means that the nation has "significant immunity" through vaccines that is preventing people from being hospitalized, said Paul. "You're still at risk if you haven't had the disease or the vaccine, but the thing is, it's all good news."
But Fauci "can never see any good news because he only stays in the media," said Paul. "He only is the media diva."
The senator added that legislation was introduced last week to eliminate Fauci's position at the NIAID and divide it into three jobs, and that could take place "the sooner the better."
"When [Republicans] take over the House and the Senate in November, we are going to investigate the origins of the virus and whether or not he covered up the origins," said Paul. "We're going to investigate his funding of the lab that we think leaked this virus…he will not escape scrutiny."
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