Kentucky republican Senator Rand Paul, a self-described doctor who formed a professional board for ophthalmologists so he could keep his certification, questioned Dr. Anthony Fauci about the effectiveness of lockdowns in controlling the coronavirus, citing Sweden as an example of effective “herd immunity” practice.
Dr. Fauci, however, spoke quickly and authoritatively to shut down Paul’s misleading arguments and misrepresentation of facts, saying he wasn’t listening to the facts being presented.
Repeatedly using the “some would argue…” fallacy to gloss over examples that defeat his point, Paul claimed that regardless of social distancing and lock-down orders, the virus would spread and “flattening the curve” would still result in the same amount of fatalities.
Paul asked Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, “Is man really capable of altering the course of an infectious disease through crowd control?”
Paul argued that lower death rates in Asia was not due to lockdown and isolation practices, but “One explanation for the low death rate in much of Asia is that population may have a higher degree of exposure to coronavirus colds and therefore have more preexisting cross-reactive immunity.”
You read the right: Paul said Asia has a lower coronavirus fatality rate because Asian people might get colds more.
Paul’s unfactual screed came down to promoting his libertarian beliefs: “While there are still many things we need to learn about this pandemic, it’s important that we the people simply not acquiesce to the authoritarian mandates on our behavior without first making the ‘nanny state’ prove their hypothesis.”
Paul asked Dr. Fauci if he had any “second thoughts” on his mitigation recommendations which led to governors imposing lockdowns. Dr. Fauci offered to sit down with Paul and educate him on the error of his so-called logic, pointing out that Sweden’s death rate is worse than other Scandinavian countries.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate to compare Sweden with us,” Fauci declared. “I don’t regret saying that the only way we could’ve stopped the explosion of infection was by essentially–I want to say ‘shutting down’–I mean to say having the physical separation and the kinds of recommendations that we’ve made.”
Paul rebutted that Dr. Fauci praises the actions of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo although, Paul said breathlessly, “New York had the highest death rate in the world!”
“No, you misconstrue that, Senator,” Dr. Fauci shot back, “and you done that repetitively in the past.”
Dr. Fauci noted that “New York got hit very badly. They made some mistakes,” but that New York State has largely been following the CDC guidelines, which has led to a test positivity rate of 1% or less.
Paul interrupted, “OR they developed enough community immunity that they’re no longer having the pandemic because they have enough immunity in New York City to actually stop it.”
Again, Dr. Fauci forcefully responded: “I challenge, Senator.” After being told Paul’s time had expired, Fauci insisted on responding saying, “Please, sir, I would like to respond because this happens with Senator Rand [sic] all the time.”
Dr. Fauci continued. “You were not listening to what the director of the CDC said, that in New York it’s about 22%. If you believe 22% is herd immunity, I believe you’re alone in that.”
Paul reiterated his point that the common cold provides immunity, to which Dr. Fauci noted a recent study that shows there’s no cross-reaction between the common cold and COVID-19.
The main fallacy of Paul’s argument, however, is the idea of flattening the curve is to avoid a spike in fatalities and infections for two reasons: first, to prevent medical systems from getting overwhelmed, which would result in more deaths; and second, to delay infections to allow scientists to design treatments and vaccines that would prevent deaths.