Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testified during a Senate Health, Education, Work and Pensions Committee hearing on the federal response to the coronavirus on Capitol Hill on March 18, 2021 in Washington, DC .
Susan Walsh | Pool | Getty Images
The White House chief medical advisor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, countered on Thursday Republican Sen. Rand Paul’s assertion that people are not at risk of contracting Covid after recovering or being vaccinated.
In a heated discussion during a Senate hearing examining the country’s coronavirus response efforts, Paul told Fauci that Americans shouldn’t have to wear masks after being vaccinated because there is a “virtually 0% chance” of getting Covid-19 .
“Isn’t it just theater?” the junior senator from Kentucky, a doctor, asked during a hearing from the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
“You were vaccinated and paraded with two masks to show off. You can’t get it again,” said Paul. “There is virtually a 0% chance that you will get it and be telling people who received the vaccine that they have immunity – you are challenging everything we know about immunity by telling people to wear masks that have been vaccinated.”
In response, Fauci said, “Here we go again with the theater.”
“I can only declare for the record that masks are not theater, “said Fauci.” I totally disagree with you. “
The emergence of new highly contagious variants poses a threat to people who have recovered from Covid or who have been vaccinated, he said.
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) speaks during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing about the federal response to the coronavirus on Capitol Hill on March 18, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Susan Walsh | Pool | Getty Images
New variants, particularly the B.1.351 strain first identified in South Africa, have been shown to escape vaccine protection.
“In the South African study carried out by [Johnson & Johnson], they found that people infected with the wild type and exposed to the variant in South Africa, 351, were as if they had never been infected before, had no protection, “said Fauci.
Fauci agreed that it was unlikely that anyone would be infected with the original strain for at least six months, “But we in our country now have variants.”
The exchange took place just over a week after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a new guideline that fully immunized people can safely visit other vaccinated people indoors without wearing a mask or social distance.
But the CDC also recommended that vaccinated people still wear masks in public settings, meetings with unvaccinated people from more than one other family and with people who are most at risk for serious illnesses.
While a growing body of evidence suggests that people who are inoculated against Covid are less likely to transmit the disease to others, it remains to be seen how long someone’s protection can last or the effectiveness of vaccines against emerging variants, the CDC said in March 8th. .