Sen. Rand Paul Tuesday blasted Dr. Anthony Fauci after the nation's leading infectious disease specialist reversed his position on keeping schools closed because of the novel coronavirus.
"I think this illustrates the danger of centralizing power and decision making in one person or in Washington," the Kentucky Republican said on Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "When one person is so wrong as Dr. Fauci has been, it has grave effects for school children. The evidence is clear for six months. From countries in Europe and Asia that schools don't lead to a surge. Kids are poor transmitters of this."
Fauci told ABC News' Martha Radditz Sunday that the "default position should be ... to keep the children in school and get them back to school." His comments came under fire because earlier this year, the doctor advocated keeping children out of school.
"I tried to convince him of this and now he flippantly says we'll let kids go to schools, we'll close the bars," Paul said Tuesday. "Do lockdowns prevent the spread of this?"
He said that there could be an argument, given the rapid continuing spread of the virus, that the mandates and lockdowns haven't been working.
"We went through a two-hour hearing back in June," said Paul. "We went through several of these. Not one person brought up from the so-called experts that the mortality rate among children was about 1 in a million. I brought this up with Dr. Fauci. Immediately his defensive response was what about Kawasaki Disease ... he wasn't really listening."
Paul said he thinks the doctor has a belief that "we should submit, that we're all members of the hive, all members of the collective, that submission is more important than the facts."
For example, Fauci last spring said masks don't matter and don't work, but now there are mandates everywhere, said Paul.
"Every time we've instituted a mandate the actual incidence of the disease has risen, so there is no evidence that these mandates are working and we're crippling the economy," said Paul. "Maybe we ought to reassess what we're doing."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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