Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Sen. Rand Paul is \u201cdead wrong\u201d with his skepticism of continued mask-wearing, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday, extending the pair\u2019s long-simmering feud that boiled over during congressional testimony a day earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cSenator Paul has this message that we don\u2019t need masks, which goes against just about everything we know about how to prevent the spread of the virus,\u201d Fauci told \u201cCBS This Morning,\u201d accusing the Kentucky Republican of \u201cquoting literature selectively and leaving out important studies.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t have anything personally against him. But he\u2019s just, quite frankly, incorrect,\u201d Fauci said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, on \u201cFox & Friends,\u201d Paul charged that Fauci \u201ckeeps moving the goalposts\u201d with regard to mask-wearing and said the veteran immunologist\u2019s decision to keep covering his face in public after being vaccinated was \u201cone of his noble lies to convince everybody to wear masks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul, an ophthalmologist with no expertise in epidemiology, also described Fauci as \u201csuch a government worry-wart\u201d and predicted that \u201cultimately, the government bureaucrats like Fauci will lose\u201d because \u201cpeople are already pushing back.\u201d<\/p>\n
The combative remarks from both the senator and the nation\u2019s top infectious disease expert represented a continuation of their debate Thursday at a meeting of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. During that hearing, Paul essentially argued that Americans who have already received their coronavirus vaccinations or been infected should not have to wear masks.<\/p>\n
But Fauci noted that infection from the \u201cwild-type\u201d strain of the coronavirus \u2014 which contains no major mutations \u2014 was only proven to provide immunity for six months, and he stressed that emerging variants of Covid-19 \u2014 which public health experts have warned could rapidly result in a new wave of the pandemic in the United States \u2014 posed equal risk those who had already been infected with the original strain.<\/p>\n