Rand Paul Says It’s ‘Impossible’ to ‘Stop the Virus’, But ‘Herd Immunity is Happening’
On Thursday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) claimed it’s “impossible, really, to stop the virus and put it dead in its tracks” during an appearance on Fox News, though he argued that herd immunity is taking place in cities.
After Paul told the Fox News Rundown podcast on Wednesday that lockdowns were a “big mistake,” he elaborated in a Thursday interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier.
“I think what you found in New York is that we ended up having horrendous death, we had 30-some-odd-thousand people die. Their death rate is about 1,600 per million — the highest in the country, eight times worse than Florida, 10 times worse than Texas — even now with the surge if Texas and Florida,” Paul said. “So I don’t think there’s a lot in New York that we can look to and say that’s what we should model after.”
“In fact, I really think Governor Cuomo ought to be impeached for the worst public policy, public health decision maybe in a century, sending patients with coronavirus back to nursing homes. So I don’t think there’s anything to be lauded up there,” he continued. “But I think the one story people are missing is amidst this resurgence, or surge in the disease: New York has very few deaths and very few new cases.”
Paul argued, “It has nothing to do with the lockdown,” explaining, “I believe it has a great deal to do with the level of immunity they have achieved. I think about 25 percent or so of New York City is now immune, and I think that is slowing down the progress of the disease. I think it has little to do with human or government behavior, but it has a lot to do with immunity. Stockholm is about the same in Sweden… Northern Italy is about the same.”
Baier questioned, “But senator, you’re not arguing for herd immunity in these places where it’s out of control, are you?”
“I’m not saying we have a choice. All the things we do aren’t stopping the virus and it’s impossible, really, to stop the virus and put it dead in its tracks,” Paul responded. “The virus has a mind of its own, it’s a scourge of Mother Nature, and we do our best with it, but even when we try to do our best, even when we’ve locked everything down, it still leads to a mountain of dead people. That’s what happened in New York.”
“What I’m saying is that while we’re not sort of advocating, ‘Hey let’s do nothing and get herd immunity,’ herd immunity is happening. It happened in New York, and I think we’ve actually achieved it, but we achieved it at a much smaller number than the theoretical predictions,” Paul claimed, noting “The theoretical predictions based on random behavior of a random mathematical model say you need 60 to 70 percent.”
Watch above via Fox News.
