Restaurants have been hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Indoor eateries have been highlighted as places where the illness could spread more quickly than others.
And the Republican party has been oddly focused on the food services industry. Recently, when he was asked what people don’t like wearing masks, Donald Trump replied by saying waiters.
And Rand Paul also seems fixated on waiters and how they should operate. The Kentucky senator referenced restaurants during a recent for Republican House candidate Nick Freitas.
“If I owned a restaurant,” Paul said, “I’d have a whole wing for senior citizens or for anybody who is worried about getting sick, and I would say, all my servers have already had it. If I had a cruise ship… everybody would have had the infection that works on the boat.”
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Rand Paul says 97% of viruses can go through cloth masks and calls for restaurants to set up senior only zones to be served by waiters who have survived their battles with COVID. https://t.co/nXddZndM3c
Via @sambrodey
— Sam Stein (@samstein) October 26, 2020
The Kentucky senator, who contracted COVID earlier this year, also handed out a bit of misinformation about masks. “I’m not telling you not to wear a mask,†he said. “The cloth masks… I’m just telling you the truth, they don’t work. Ninety-seven percent of viruses go through a cloth mask.”
Paul did not give any proof of his claim. He closed by telling attendees, “I’ve had it. I can’t get it again. I can’t give it to you and I can’t get it. The president said the virus would go away, and they mock him and make fun of it. The virus will go away.”
Todd Neikirk is a New Jersey based politics and technology writer. His work has been featured in psfk.com, foxsports.com and hillreporter.com. He enjoys sports, politics, comic books and spending time at the shore with his family.