Rand Paul: CDC’s Problems Are Being ‘Misdiagnosed’ — Their Problem Was ‘Lack of Humility’

On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) reacted to CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky saying the agency needs to be overhauled by arguing that the agency’s problem wasn’t that they were too slow and didn’t act enough, the problem was that they “thought they knew the truth, they were so adamant that they knew the truth that they were going to tell everybody what to do and what to wear, and that was their mistake, was a lack of humility.”

Paul said, “Well, they say part of the road to recovery is admitting that you have a problem. So, I guess they have now admitted they have a problem. But like so many things at the CDC, the left has misdiagnosed the problem and they’re going to misapply the solution. It wasn’t that they acted too sparingly. The problem was that they acted too quickly and not based on science. It wasn’t that they were waiting around for science, they were reacting every week with a new edict that contradicted the previous week’s edict.”

He added, “So, what I would suggest, if they want to reorganize, is humility. I think they need to step back and get back into the advice game, not the mandate game. So, with masks, they should have said, the evidence is inconclusive. For the most part, cloth masks don’t work. If you’re at high risk or in a situation where you’re having to take care of a family member, you might want to wear a mask, but there’s no scientific evidence of any randomized controlled study that masks actually reduce the incidence in the public sphere of the transmission of the disease, and then you make your own decision. Instead, they became so obsessed and thought they knew the truth, they were so adamant that they knew the truth that they were going to tell everybody what to do and what to wear, and that was their mistake, was a lack of humility. So, if the reorganization says we’re going to be humble, try to look through the science, and when it’s equivocal, give advice, not mandates, that’s what I would suggest to them.”

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