Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Dr. Anthony Fauci’s most dedicated troll in Congress, took his skepticism of COVID-19 experts to the campaign trail on Sunday, telling a Virginia crowd matter-of-factly that cloth masks don’t work and defending President Trump’s repeated statements that the virus will simply go away.“I’m not telling you not to wear a mask,” Paul said at a rally for Nick Freitas, a Republican candidate for Congress in central Virginia, which was streamed on Freitas’ Facebook page. “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 cite at the time where he got this figure. But his office sent a tweet from Paul last month sharing a 2015 study that found particle penetration of cloth masks was 97 percent. Not noted, however, was that the authors of the study revisited it in light of the COVID-19 outbreak and said the “physical barrier provided by a cloth mask may afford some protection,” and tailor...
