Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) maintained that he would resist any attempt from a prospective Biden administration to institute a nationwide lockdown in the name of curtailing COVID-19.
Speaking during a Sunday interview on WABC’s “The CATS Roundtable with John Catsimatidis,” Paul said, “I’m going to do everything I can to try to prevent Biden from locking us up and locking us down and forcing us to wear masks forever. We can’t go on like this forever.”
“Today, Biden’s talking more about a lockdown,” Paul continued. “This is absolutely why he’s going to be a terrible president if we get him. He’s going to ruin the country. Lockdowns don’t work. And in fact, all of the evidence on mandatory masks show that they don’t work either.”
“There’s about 10 different countries or venues, maybe 20, that instituted mandatory masks, and every one of them to a T, the infection rate or the COVID rate went up after the mask mandate,” Paul continued. “Now, this is just showing that … all these mitigation strategies — washing our hands, staying six feet apart — they really don’t work, frankly. And the virus, as the Wall Street Journal put it, is insidious. It does what it’s going to do. The only thing that’s going to stop it is either enough immunity among individuals in the community or a vaccine.”
Former Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, the co-chair of Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s coronavirus task force, described a national lockdown as “a measure of last resort” on Sunday, contradicting Dr. Michael Osterholm, another Biden advisor who had earlier suggested another four- to six-week lockdown.
Paul, who was the first U.S. senator to come down with COVID-19 in March, has faced criticism for recent comments he made suggesting that 11 million Americans who had the virus are “immune” from it and should “throw away their masks.” He has also clashed with Dr. Anthony Fauci.
As The Daily Wire reported:
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) slammed critics as “scientific illiterates” after he drew heat for saying Americans who have recovered from COVID-19 should “throw away their masks” and “celebrate.”
Paul appeared Thursday on Fox News and said that 11 million Americans who have recovered from COVID-19 are immune from the disease and should no longer abide by heavy-handed government restrictions designed to limit the spread of the coronavirus. Paul said that those Americans that have recovered from the virus are now “immune” and cannot pass on the disease.
“We have 11 million people in our country who have already had COVID. We should tell them to celebrate,” said Paul, a graduate of the Duke University School of Medicine and a licensed ophthalmologist. “We should tell them to throw away their masks, go to restaurants, live again because these people are now immune.”
Paul also took a shot at Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Paul has criticized Fauci, who had significant influence over the U.S. response to the pandemic early on, over his continued support for pandemic restrictions on people and businesses.
“Dr. Fauci doesn’t want to admit to any of that. Dr. Fauci is like, ‘Oh, woe is me,’ until the election occurs and now, maybe he’ll be changing his attitude,” Paul said.