On Tuesday, Republican Senator Rand Paul said America should both reopen the economy and public schools at this point during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As coronavirus cases continue to rise across the country, the question of how much to rollback the loosening of restrictions in certain states and whether or not having students attend public schools has been a matter of great debate.
Sen. Paul makes the case for reopening schools
Paul said on Fox News’ “Your World with Neil Cavuto” that the media was “scaring people to death” about an illness that poses very little risk to most Americans.
“The mortality for children, 0 to 18 is one in a million or less,” Paul said. “The mortality between 18 years of age and 45 is about ten in 100,000, so we need to assess those risks and make decisions.”
The Kentucky senator pointed out that said schools have opened in 22 European countries and are “doing just fine,” adding that children are “not good transmitters” of coronavirus.
“In general, people who are asymptomatic are not good transmitters,” said Paul, adding that “very few staff members” got infected when New York daycares stayed open for critical workers throughout the height of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Whether our eyes are focused on returning kids to school or stimulating renewed economic growth, such humility will be essential. If we hope to weather this storm and preserve public health, we need more diversity in approach and action, not less. https://t.co/MsPyo2frjC
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) July 13, 2020
Paul says Fauci is ‘well-intentioned’ but he’s not the only expert we should be listening to’
Paul said of White House COVID-19 task force member Dr. Anthony Fauci, that he is “well-intentioned,” but also cited Stanford Dr. Scott Atlas, who the senator said “has a much different and a much more reasoned perspective,” that should be considered as well.
“What we do is we listen to a lot of these people,” Paul said. “Ultimately, if we are going to live in a free country, none of these people should get to make a decision for us. For us individually, each individual should assess the risks and make their choices.”
“Frankly, if you’re 18 years old, the rules should be or the advice should be much different than if you are 80 years old,” the senator continued. “If you are in a nursing home and 85 years old. And so it isn’t one-size-fits-all. We can’t say everybody needs to stay at home because someone at the nursing home might get sick.”
Today in the HELP hearing on COVID-19 with Dr. Fauci I forced him to admit that we MUST get kids back to school. pic.twitter.com/gDFWRjKz2y
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) June 30, 2020
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“No, let’s try to be careful and protect those in the nursing home,” he added. “But let’s open the economy, open the schools.”
Paul said the country could be closer to some degree of herd immunity, which he also said might come about at a lower percentage than many think.
“No one knows what the future holds, but I tend to be optimistic that we might get to 20 or 25% immunity we may be able to overcome the disease at that point,” Sen. Paul said.