Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has been a critic of Dr. Anthony Fauci for months, and after Fauci went on ABC News over the weekend to suggest that school-age children should all be back in the classroom because there’s no evidence of them being COVID super spreaders, Paul had heard enough. Responding to a tweet from right-wing instigator Jack Posobiec that said “Dr Fauci owes @randPaul an apology,” Paul tore into Fauci.

“No, he owes one to every single parent and school-age child in America. I told him this multiple times this summer.”

Here’s the backstory. Back in June, Paul confronted Fauci at a hearing in the Senate about his wishy-washy recommendations about what was safe and what wasn’t, and not once over the summer did Fauci suggest it was safe for kids to be in classrooms, like he is advocating now.

Paul confronted Fauci in the Senate, saying, “Dr. Fauci, every day, virtually every day we seem to hear from you things we can’t do. But when you’re asked, Can we go back to school? I don’t hear much certitude at all. I hear, ‘Well maybe, it depends. … All I hear, Dr. Fauci, is we can’t do this, we can’t do that. We can’t play baseball. … [M]y question to you is can’t you give us a little bit more on schools that we can get back to school, that there’s a great deal of evidence, and that it’s actually good evidence that kids aren’t transmitting this. It’s rare. And that kids are staying healthy and that yes, we can open our schools.”

What annoyed Paul and others is the level of influence Fauci commands, but the uncertainty of some of his directives. Specifically, Fauci’s comment on CNBC in June that reopening schools had a “complicated answer.”

“It has to be a bit of a — and I don’t mean lengthwise — a bit of a complicated answer, because the United States is a large country …. When youre talking about getting back to a degree of normality and school openings and things like that, it’s always related to the level of activity of the virus,” Fauci said.

Hopefully, Fauci can stick to his current story about the safety of kids being in their classrooms and the politicians who follow his advice actually listen.

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