Sen. Rand Paul Thursday called for vaccine makers to expand trials to include millions of volunteers so the treatment can be released faster nationwide.
"What they should do is, if they want to continue the trials, instead of 40,000 people why don't we make them 4 million, so at least another 3.5 million could be enrolled in the trials," the Kentucky Republican, who is an ophthalmologist, said on Fox Business' "Mornings With Maria."
There are millions of people who would voluntarily take the test, he said, so "let's get them started."
"That way we can head towards immunity, combining natural immunity and vaccinated immunity, to get to what we want to much quicker," argued Paul, who was diagnosed with COVID-19 back in March. "I think waiting another four months is foolish."
The senator also railed against government-ordered lockdowns and mask mandates, saying that both distract from the development of vaccines and don't work to stop the spread of the disease.
"Let's hope, in this case, the courts will intervene," said Paul. "I've been calling my governor for months 'DWP' — drunk with power — because he's taken this power without any consent from the legislature."
Lockdowns, he added, are "completely arbitrary" and there is "very little objective science to prove that any of this works."
Paul also claimed that data shows cloth masks don't work and that they're nothing but "theater."
"If you look at the cloth masks, 97% of virus particles go through cloth masks, so we're kidding ourselves, and what it's doing is it's detracting from the one thing that could save and could really help us and that's the vaccine," said Paul.
He added that he hopes the vaccines will come out quickly, as several companies have reported high effectiveness rates.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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