Rand Paul Schools Fauci on Vaccines and Masks

Senator and Doctor Rand Paul got into another heated exchange with Dr. Anthony Fauci over vaccination and masks.

Paul’s argument is that studies show that people who have had COVID are immune from reinfection and there have been no studies showing a significant risk of hospitalization or death after reinfection. Paul also said that vaccines are effective in longterm immunity as well and saying that people will need to wear masks regardless of whether they have already been sick or received the vaccine is “theater”.

Fauci answers with an inaccuracy about the studies, claiming that they were in vitro (see study below), and then claiming that there is a significant risk of reinfection with variants of the disease, which the vaccine does not protect against.

Paul asked for the studies that show there is a significant risk of reinfection, saying that there have been none.

Crotty study Immunological memory to SARS-CoV-2 assessed for up to 8 months after infection:

Immune memory against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) helps to determine protection against reinfection, disease risk, and vaccine efficacy. Using 188 human cases across the range of severity of COVID-19, Dan et al. analyzed cross-sectional data describing the dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 memory B cells, CD8⁺ T cells, and CD4⁺ T cells for more than 6 months after infection. The authors found a high degree of heterogeneity in the magnitude of adaptive immune responses that persisted into the immune memory phase to the virus. However, immune memory in three immunological compartments remained measurable in greater than 90% of subjects for more than 5 months after infection. Despite the heterogeneity of immune responses, these results show that durable immunity against secondary COVID-19 disease is a possibility for most individuals.