Rand Paul, Fauci spar over whether wearing masks after COVID vaccine is 'just theater'
Paul said there was "no evidence" of significant reinfections of Covid-19 after infection or vaccine, adding he didn’t believe there had been any hospitalizations after the two-week period following full vaccination.
"You’re not hearing what I’m saying about variants. We’re talking about wild type versus variants," Fauci said.
"What study has found reinfection with severe symptoms with variants? You’re making policy based on conjecture," Paul said.
"You've been vaccinated and you parade around in two masks for show," Paul continued. "You're defying everything we know about immunity by telling people to wear a mask that have been vaccinated."’
"You want to get rid of vaccine hesitancy? Tell them they can quit wearing their mask after they get a vaccine," the senator said, "instead of telling them the nanny state's going to be there for three more years and you’ve got to wear a mask forever. People don't want to hear it and there's no science behind it."
"If you have immunity you’re wearing a mask to give comfort to others. You’re not wearing a mask because of any science," he said.
Fauci said that vaccines, developed for immunity to wild-type COVID-19, offered some "spillover immunity" to COVID variants, but that protection was diminished by anywhere from two- to eight-fold.
"We’re not dealing with a static situation for the same virus," Fauci added.
A new study by the New York Blood Center found that all three FDA-approved vaccines show efficacy against COVID-19 variants.
"Our analysis finds that there is more than enough evidence to support that the vaccines will work against mutated forms of COVID-19," the authors of the study, published in
Science Magazine, wrote. They added that the efficacy of the vaccine needs to be reevaluated as new strains emerge.
Fauci torched for backtracking '6 feet:' Based on the science? 'Think again'
Former CIA analyst and podcast host Buck Sexton shredded Fauci and the agency on Twitter later Sunday for backtracking after a year of demanding "6 feet of social distancing."
"Oh, you thought "6 feet of social distancing" was some fancy super scientific thing they came up with after years of real world testing and experience? Think again," he wrote.