Rand Paul suggests restaurants start hiring COVID survivors to aid safe reopening

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Sen. Rand Paul made a suggestion related to coronavirus during a voting rally in Virginia Sunday – staffing service-industry jobs with people who already have survived COVID-19 in order to help reopen the economy.

“If I had a restaurant 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,” Paul (R-Ky.) told the audience. “If I had a cruise ship, I’d hire everybody, no exceptions, everybody would’ve had the infection that works on the boat.”

Paul argued that people who have contracted and survived the coronavirus, as he has, develop an immunity to reinfection – although scientists and doctors are unsure about that claim.

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“We do not know yet if having antibodies to the virus that causes COVID-19 can protect someone from getting infected again or, if they do, how long this protection might last,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says in a coronavirus FAQ on its website.

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“Is it perfect? Do I know I’m immune forever? No,” Paul admitted. But if immunity does work, he argued, it could be used “to our advantage” in “all kinds of ways.”

“This was a completely government-inflicted nightmare and depression, and it won’t be over until we open the economy,” he said.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., arrives for votes during a rare weekend session to advance the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, at the Capitol in Washington, Oct. 25. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

He also noted that N95 masks are more protective than cloth masks against the spread of the coronavirus and encouraged people to be smart about taking care of themselves.

“I have a good friend, who was a doctor, two years older, and she died in our community,” he said. “So it can be deadly.”

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Paul was speaking at an early voting rally in Chesterfield, where he voiced support on behalf of Nick Freitas, a Green Beret and Iraq war veteran who is vying to represent the state’s 7th Congressional District, currently held by Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger.

“He’s seen combat, but knows that war is the last resort not the first resort,” Paul said of the candidate.