Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., says Americans shouldn’t be mandated to do anything when it comes to contact tracing.
“It’s crazy. It’s inconsistent with everything our country was founded upon. No, we shouldn’t be mandated into anything,” Paul said Wednesday during an appearance on Newsmax TV’s “The Chris Salcedo Show.”
“It could be voluntary. … They could ask you and you could say, ‘Well I want to volunteer, but I don’t want to volunteer all my friends. I have to ask them their permission because if it means you’re going to come and lock them in their house for 14 days, I think I ought to probably to ask them before I turn them into the government.”
Contact tracing has helped slow or stop previous epidemics, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say immediate action is needed to help tame the coronavirus pandemic.
"Communities must scale up and train a large contact tracer workforce and work collaboratively across public and private agencies to stop the transmission of COVID-19," the disease caused by novel coronavirus, the CDC said.
Paul says the government is “hellbent on quarantining the healthy.
“It’s not even that they’re going to do these draconian things and lock you in your house if you’re sick, they’re willing to lock you in your house even if you’re not sick. And I think really, they’re ignoring a whole host of evidence – one, the history of our country, our individual freedoms and bill of rights. They’re also ignoring even the practical evidence of who gets sick from this and what the death rate. I think we have to look more at the evidence and not let these people proclaim that they are the expert on everything, and we can all bow down like sheep, bend the knee and kiss the ring. I think we really do need to push back as a country and fight for our freedoms.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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