Sen. Rand Paul criticized Dr. Anthony Fauci and suggested that he and other leading U.S. health officials have incorrectly predicted how widespread the coronavirus pandemic would be in America.
“I think we ought to have a little bit of humility in our belief that we know what’s best for the economy,” Paul said Tuesday during a Senate coronavirus response oversight hearing. “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 that gets to make a decision.”
Paul argued that more people should look to other nations of the world, some of which have imposed more lenient lockdown measures in response to the pandemic, for guidance on how to slow the spread while keeping the national economy moving.
“We’re opening up a lot of economies around the U.S., and I hope that people who are predicting doom and gloom and saying, ‘Oh, we can’t do this’ … will admit that they were wrong if there isn’t a surge because I think that’s what’s going to happen,” the Republican from Kentucky said.
Paul continued: “In rural states — we never really reached any sort of pandemic levels in Kentucky and other states. We have less deaths in Kentucky than we have in an average flu season.”
Earlier during the hearing, Fauci warned of “needless suffering” nationwide if local economies reopen too soon, putting more people in danger of being infected with the coronavirus.
“We will be investing considerable resources in developing doses even before we know any given candidate or candidates work,” Fauci said. “I must warn that there is also the possibility of negative consequences, where certain vaccines can actually enhance the negative effect of the infection.”
Paul, who himself was diagnosed with the coronavirus in March, said a one-size-fits-all approach to reopening the economy is not supported by data.
“We really ought to be doing it school district by school district,” he said. “The power needs to be dispersed because people make wrong predictions, and really, the history of this when we look back will be of wrong prediction after wrong prediction after wrong prediction.”
More than 80,000 people have died of the coronavirus in the United States, and there have been more than 1.3 million cases confirmed as of Tuesday.
[Related: Fauci warns certain coronavirus vaccinations could ‘enhance the negative effect of the infection’]
