Rand Paul, Kentucky's second-worst senator, called out his arch nemesis Dr. Anthony Fauci the other day. Pizzagate conspiracy theorist and Internet troll Jack Posobiec declared on Twitter that Dr. Fauci owed Paul an apology. That's a bit of stretch: Dr. Fauci is the country's leading epidemiologist but he's not God, who's responsible for Paul's defective brain.
Paul quickly and melodramatically responded that Fauci actually owes an apology to “every single parent and school-age child in America," because Paul apparently believes Fauci is either the president of the United States or literally COVID-19.
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This is typical of the one-sided feud between Dr. Fauci and Mr. Hide From His Neighbor. Paul thinks Dr. Fauci's a big scaredy cat, who's overly concerned about human life during a global pandemic. During a Senate hearing this summer, Paul demanded that schools reopen without any scientific evidence to back up his request. He just wanted it to happen. Dr. Fauci, who didn't get his medical license from a bubble gum machine, was more measured, and this infuriated America's leading mall optometrist.
PAUL: Dr. Fauci, every day we seem to hear from you things we can't do. But when you're asked, 'Can we go back to school?' I don't hear much certitude at all. 'Well, maybe.' 'It depends.' Guess what? It's rare for kids to transmit this. I don't hear that coming from you.
No, because Dr. Fauci's a scientist and wasn't going to make such a definitive statement. That's the province of idiots like Paul. “Well, maybe" and “It depends" wasn't Dr. Fauci being coy or avoiding giving Paul a truer, more hurtful response like the girls he asked out in high school. Whether schools could reopen did greatly depend on whether Americans could maybe wear a mask, maybe social distance, and maybe stop crowding bars. They didn't and cases surged.
Dr. Fauci sounded alarm bells during the June Senate hearing about COVID-19's trajectory.
DR. FAUCI: We are now having 40-plus-thousand new [COVID-19] cases a day. I would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around.
There were at least 167, 759 confirmed coronavirus cases on Monday.
Paul “warned" that "if society meekly submits to an expert and that expert is wrong, a great deal of harm may occur when we allow one man's policy or one group of small men and women to be foisted on an entire nation."
Dr. Fauci wasn't wrong, but it's not like society “meekly" submitted to his expertise in the first place. Donald Trump mostly ignored Dr. Fauci's counsel and promoted quick-fix cures. He couldn't even model the responsible behavior that would've helped slow the spread.
Paul failed to mention that Dr. Fauci agreed that "we need to do whatever we can to get the children back to school." From the start of the pandemic, Dr. Fauci and other experts advised school districts to “consider all factors" before deciding it was safe to resume in-person schooling. He's remained consistent on this position while Paul has remained consistently stupid.
“Close the bars and keep the schools open,” Dr. Anthony Fauci says, adding that while there is no solution that is… https://t.co/Kzcwuqwxzn— ABC News Politics (@ABC News Politics) 1606661017.0
Dr. Fauci is a scientist, not a partisan hack with an Ayn Rand poster over his bed. He can adapt as we learn more about how the disease spreads. He clarified this point Sunday on ABC's "This Week."
DR. FAUCI: The default position should be to try as best as possible, within reason, to keep the children in school, to get them back to school. If you look at the data, the spread among children and from children is not very big at all, not like one would have suspected. So let's try to get the kids back. But let's try to mitigate the things that maintain and push the kind of community spread we are trying to avoid. And those are the things you know well. The bars, the restaurants ... those are the things that drive the community spread. Not the schools.
Few Republicans were willing to shut down the economy for an extended period or sacrifice anything really in order to keep kids in a safe, reliable learning environment. They wanted everything open — bars, restaurants, Trump rallies — and school-age children have suffered as a result of their shortsighted obstinance. If people like Rand Paul are looking for an apology, they should look in the mirror.
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