Rand Paul touts natural immunity over vaccine

• Kentucky Senator Rand Paul (R) has declared that he will not get the COVID-19 vaccine.
• He said that he has already contracted the disease and therefore has natural immunity.
• He added that vaccination should be a personal choice and not mandated.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has declared that he will not get the COVID-19 vaccine, saying he already has natural immunity from previously contracting it.

The senator made the statement during Sunday’s interview with John Catsimatidis on his radio show on WABC 770 AM.

Paul, who is also an ophthalmologist, was the first known senator to have tested positive for COVID-19 back in March 2020.

Since it is still unknown how long natural immunity lasts, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended that those who have recovered from COVID-19 still get the vaccine.

But Paul told Catsimatidis, “Until they show me evidence that people who have already had the infection are dying in large numbers or being hospitalized or getting very sick, I just made my own personal decision that I’m not getting vaccinated because I’ve already had the disease and I have natural immunity.”

The demand for the vaccines have significantly plummeted after the rush to administer the shots earlier in the year. According to the CDC, 60.8 percent of adults have gotten at least one shot while 48.8 percent have been fully vaccinated.

Other Republican senators, such as Paul’s Kentucky colleague and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), have been vaccinated and even urged Americans to get vaccinated as well.

Still, a recent poll from PBS NewsHour/NPR/ Marist showed that vaccine hesitancy is more prevalent among Republicans, with about 41 percent not planning to get vaccinated, compared to about 4 percent of Democrats.

Paul has long criticized coronavirus restrictions and mask mandates. He has often debated with Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, during Senate panel hearings on the pandemic response.

On Sunday, he declared that getting the vaccine should be a personal choice and not mandated.

He said, “In a free country, you would think people would honor the idea that each individual would get to make the medical decision, that it wouldn’t be a big brother coming to tell me what I have to do.”

The senator compared it to choosing “to eat carrots only and cut my calories” instead of having “a cheeseburger for lunch.” He argued, “All that would probably be good for me, but I don’t think big brother ought to tell me to do it.”

Source: The Hill