COVID misinformation or skepticism? Kentucky's Rand Paul, Thomas Massie keep hammering away
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Scroll through the Twitter feeds of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Thomas Massie and you'll see post after post casting doubt on public health experts' consensus that people should mask up and get vaccinated to fight COVID-19.
The libertarian-leaning congressmen have delivered a one-two punch of loud and intense skepticism about those recommendations lately, even as the coronavirus' super-contagious delta variant rips through their home state and COVID-19 patients are being hospitalized at near-record levels.
The duo, especially Paul, have inaccurately claimed masking is ineffective, and they've suggested people who previously caught COVID-19 won't benefit from getting vaccinated, even though experts widely advise they do so.
Massie also has questioned the vaccines' efficacy and necessity more broadly, despite medical and public health professionals' consensus that they remain safe and effective, especially at preventing hospitalization and death.
"The underplaying of the effectiveness of the vaccine is dangerous," said Yotam Ophir, an assistant professor of communication who researches misinformation on vaccines and other topics.
Ophir, who works at the State University of New York's University at Buffalo, said some of the statements from Paul and Massie qualify as misinformation and can have real consequences for the people listening.
"In a polarized society where people are too trusting of their own side and too dismissive of the other side, what our favorite politicians are saying matters a lot," he said. "And some people will take their words over whatever the scientific community is saying."
The Kaiser Family Foundation says Republicans, as well as people who are uninsured, live in rural areas or are 18 to 29 years old, have reported lower vaccination rates than other demographics, and Republicans are less willing than Democrats and independents to get vaccinated against this disease.
It's unclear, though, how much politicians influence people's choices.
Stanford University medical professor Robert Kaplan said research indicates "most people are not that affected by new information" in terms of their views on vaccination.
Kaplan said Stanford surveys showed about 35% of respondents said they were unlikely to take a COVID-19 vaccine both in August 2020, before there was an available vaccine, and in December 2020, when vaccines had been publicly released and clinical trials showed they were very effective.
He said people Stanford has surveyed also said they generally weren't influenced by politicians.
"That has led me to think that in fact what politicians think and recommend may have less effect than people realize," he said. "If you look at states that have been more vaccine-hesitant, they were more vaccine-hesitant well before people knew there would be an (effective) vaccine."
However, that doesn't mean politics isn't playing any role in this situation.
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Ophir said he and his colleagues' research has shown vaccines, as well as science more generally, have become more and more politicized.
"If large chunks of the population are politically motivated to reject the science and the solutions it brings (masks, distance, vaccines), we will never be able to get back to our normal lives and cope with COVID-19 and its current and future variants," he told The Courier Journal.
Massie, Paul say they're anti-mandate, not anti-vax
Paul and Massie have depicted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — the nation's public health agency — as untrustworthy and have railed repeatedly against mandating masks or vaccines.
However, they maintain their opposition to requiring vaccination and other comments about COVID-19 vaccines doesn't mean they're anti-vaccine.
"I’m not promoting vaccine hesitancy; I’m promoting vaccine-mandate hesitancy," Massie, who proposed legislation that would prohibit mandating vaccines for the U.S. military, tweeted Tuesday. "I support your right to decide whether you and your kids should take the COVID vaccine or not."
Massie's spokesman, John Kennedy, also told The Courier Journal: "Congressman Massie’s public comments on the vaccines are backed by scientific studies which he often makes available to the public to read. This is more than can be said for the politicized decisions coming out of both the CDC and Governor (Andy) Beshear’s office."
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Similarly, Paul recently discussed how a reporter had asked him if he'd changed his opinion on vaccines. "I said, 'No, I'm still as pro-vaccine as I’ve always been,'" he recounted.
"But I'm also pro-freedom, and I think you can have both," Paul said.
Paul also has said he thinks it's advisable for anyone over 65 years old or who's overweight and in their 30s, 40s or above to get a COVID-19 vaccine.
In a statement to The Courier Journal, Paul cited recent data on over 7,000 new COVID-19 cases from Israel showing vaccinated people with no known previous COVID-19 infection were more likely to get infected than unvaccinated people who'd previously caught COVID-19.
"The scientific evidence of this large Israeli study supports my conclusion that natural immunity is quite protective against reinfection," he said. "I am following the evidence presented in the Israeli study by not choosing at this time to be further immunized, but I keep an open mind and will continue to monitor the reinfection data."
A new CDC study based on data from Kentuckians who caught COVID-19 twice said unvaccinated people who'd already been infected were more than twice as likely to get infected again than people who got vaccinated after they had the virus.
Vaccines remain highly effective at preventing severe illness, hospitalization and death from the delta variant, according to Dr. Paul McKinney, the University of Louisville School of Public Health's associate dean for research.
They're still preventing a lot of infections too, and the virus' spread among unvaccinated people is driving the surge in cases, McKinney said. A prior COVID-19 infection provides protection against the variant someone caught, as well as some cross-protection against other variants, but vaccines provide better resistance to a wider variety of variants.
'Connecting the dots'
Massie got fined $500 for refusing to mask up in the House of Representatives and made headlines for suing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over it, while Paul has been an especially intense, frequent critic of masking.
Paul has acknowledged N-95 masks are effective but has broadly derided masking as a tool to limit the coronavirus' spread in communities.
Last week, the senator posted a controversial video telling people to ignore the CDC's mask policies, and YouTube temporarily suspended his account over another video in which he inaccurately claimed cloth masks don't protect against the coronavirus.
Paul is up for reelection next year and his campaign has sent out fundraising emails that echo the senator's rhetoric about masks and COVID-19 mandates and highlight his public clashes with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government's top infectious diseases expert.
Democrat Charles Booker, who's running for Paul's seat, said of the senator: "He’s a contrarian. He wants to find a way to get people upset and angry and afraid, and then he’ll ask them for money. … This really is not new for him. But we just can’t afford it. We’re trying to stay safe."
Massie, meanwhile, has posted a lot of tweets lately expressing skepticism about the widespread need for COVID-19 vaccination.
The Northern Kentucky congressman, who represents part of Jefferson County, has posted repeatedly about potential but rare side effects of the vaccines, such as myocarditis, suggested "millions of people don't need" vaccination and questioned the vaccines' efficacy for the delta variant.
Ophir, the professor who studies misinformation, said there's a range of misinformation on COVID-19 and vaccines online that runs the gamut from extreme claims to "relatively mild claims, like overemphasizing side-effects…"
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Saying masks are unnecessary or ineffective is false and a straightforward type of misinformation, he said.
Both Massie and Paul also have engaged in "misinformation by omission," or cherry-picking, Ophir said, explaining: "They seem to cherry-pick tidbits of information that are congruent with their point of view … while ignoring information that is inconvenient for them."
McKinney, the U of L professor, acknowledged myocarditis is a potential side effect of COVID-19 vaccination and said younger males are more prone to it, but the cases haven't been severe.
"The people who have had it have generally very mild cases. … No one has died as a result of that myocarditis and no one has been bedridden or permanently impaired as a result," said McKinney, who noted COVID-19 also carries a risk of causing myocarditis.
When comparing the risks of the potential side effects of getting vaccinated to the risks unvaccinated people face from COVID-19, he said "the vaccine wins out every single time."
Dr. Monalisa Tailor, a primary care physician and the Greater Louisville Medical Society's board chair, said anyone concerned about myocarditis or other potential side effects should consult with their health care provider.
"That’s an opportunity to talk to your doctor and have an educated conversation in regards to the facts that’s tailored to you," she said.
She also said it is clear masks reduce the transmission of the coronavirus and other respiratory viruses.
"Our last winter is a beautiful example of that," she said, citing the lack of flu cases or Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) cases in children at a time when masking, social distancing and hand-washing were commonly practiced.
"And so as people are gathering and coming back together, we've seen this resurgence in viral illnesses," Tailor said. "So we know the masks do make a difference, and we’ve seen it."
Ben Chandler, president and CEO of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky, said he's concerned by the rhetoric of politicians like Massie and Paul and how it could impact people's decision to get vaccinated.
"There’s plenty of data to back up the fact that masks work and … there’s data to show that you’re much better off with the vaccine than you are without the vaccine," he said.
"When people spread misinformation, it leads to uncertainty at best, and that uncertainty then leads to hesitancy … which does lead to more people becoming infected," he continued. "It's not hard to connect these dots."
Chandler, a former Democratic congressman, stressed his criticism isn't partisan and said two other Kentucky Republicans, Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. Brett Guthrie, have responsibly promoted vaccines as safe, effective and vital.
McConnell promotes vaccines
While Massie and Paul double down on their COVID-19 rhetoric, another Kentucky Republican in Congress is promoting a sharply different message on vaccines: Senate Minority Leader McConnell.
Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, said of Kentucky's powerful senator: "McConnell is, in my view, the most prominent Republican advocate of the sensible scientific point of view about vaccines."
McConnell — who survived a childhood bout with polio, a disease vaccines ultimately defeated — recently used his own campaign money to encourage Kentuckians to get vaccinated.
"He deserves credit for trying to set the record straight, trying to contradict his colleagues even in his own state, Paul and Massie," Sabato said.
McConnell hasn't directly criticized his colleagues but has used his platform to spotlight how safe and effective the COVID-19 vaccines are.
He pointed to vaccines as the top strategy to fight the virus' new surge and said Monday he's "perplexed by the reluctance of Americans to take the vaccine."
He emphasized that nearly everyone who's been hospitalized with COVID-19 lately is unvaccinated, saying: "That's not an opinion. It's a fact. So, I'm still hoping that more and more Americans, witnessing this resurgence, will get vaccinated. I think that's clearly the answer."
Morgan Watkins is The Courier Journal's chief political reporter. Contact her at mwatkins@courierjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter: @morganwatkins26.