Dr. Peter Hotez backs Fauci in his showdown with Sen. Paul over masks

Dr. Peter Hotez is siding with one of many nation’s prime docs following a showdown between Republican Sen. Rand Paul and Dr. Anthony Fauci on Capitol Hill over masks.

“Dr. Fauci is totally proper, Senator Paul is totally incorrect, and that is the way in which it has been for the final 14 months,” Hotez stated.

Paul claimed that persons are not liable to Covid after they’ve recovered or have been vaccinated, and, subsequently, don’t have to put on masks. The Kentucky Senator additionally asserted that Fauci was sporting two masks merely for present.

The White Home chief medical advisor emphatically pushed again in opposition to Paul’s feedback Thursday throughout a Senate listening to analyzing the nation’s coronavirus response efforts.

″Can I simply state for the report that masks will not be theater,” Fauci stated. “I completely disagree with you.”

In a Thursday night interview on “The Information with Shepard Smith” Hotez famous that finally “masks may have to return off,” however that it is too quickly and “we’re nonetheless making an attempt to know the total efficiency traits of the vaccines.”

“We’re solely now getting a glimmer that it interrupts asymptomatic transmission,” Hotez stated.

The controversy over masks comes as practically half the nation is experiencing a surge in Covid circumstances. Twenty-three states reported a rise in circumstances, as a seven-day common, over the previous week, in accordance with Johns Hopkins. Half a dozen states are additionally seeing hospitalizations development greater, in accordance with the Division of Well being and Human Providers. 

Hotez, co-director of the Middle for Vaccine Growth at Texas Kids’s Hospital, advised host Shepard Smith that the spikes may very well be the results of extremely transmissible new variants. 

“The important thing now could be to vaccinate forward of the variants as quick as we will,” Hotez stated.