Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky is the first U.S. senator to test positive for Covid-19. While other legislators, like Texas senator Ted Cruz and Arizona congressman Paul Gosar, both of whom came into contact with a person infected with coronavirus at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, have self-quarantined out of an abundance of caution, Paul is the first confirmed case in Congress.
Paul’s results came back a week after he cast the lone Senate vote against an $8.3 billion emergency package in response to the coronavirus outbreak, including funding for medical supplies and community medical centers. A self-identified libertarian, Paul attempted to attach an amendment to the package that would make up for the cost by cutting other programs, and after his amendment died, he voted against the entire package to protest adding to the deficit. (Paul had no such reservations in 2017 when he voted for GOP-backed tax cuts for the richest Americans that increased the deficit by a whopping 26 percent.) Also, shortly before Paul received his diagnosis, his father, former congressman Ron Paul, posted an article titled “The Coronavirus Hoax” on his website. In it, the elder Paul wrote that “governments love crises because when the people are fearful they are more willing to give up freedoms for promises that the government will take care of them.”
While Paul gave up some of those freedoms and went into quarantine on Sunday, he spent six days going about business as usual between testing and receiving results. He reportedly continued using the Senate’s gym and pool, and also participated in a regular GOP lunch. His announcement that he had tested positive forced two other Republican senators, Mitt Romney and Mike Lee, both of Utah, to abruptly self-quarantine due to close contact with Paul.
Paul has been facing a wave of criticism since his office made the announcement, including from staunch Republicans like Lindsey Graham. On Monday, the South Carolina senator told CNN’s Manu Raju, “I know he’s compromised, but clearly between the time you’re tested and you get your results, you should be cautious about who you interact with—think that’s pretty just common sense. And I think it’s probably important for him to let people know.”
In a statement, Paul defended his actions, claiming that he was actually being proactive by getting tested at all. While he wasn’t showing symptoms, he opted for a test because he lost a portion of his lung in 2017—Paul was mowing his lawn while wearing headphones when his neighbor of 17 years tackled him from behind and assaulted him, saying later he had “had enough” when Paul reportedly dumped brush near the property line of the two yards. Paul wrote in his statement:
It’s true that the qualifications for receiving a Covid-19 test are so strict that essentially the only way to qualify for one is to be extremely sick already, and in his statement Paul calls for more testing, including for people with no symptoms (who some studies say may drive the majority of infections). But not self-isolating while waiting for test results on a highly contagious virus seems like a surprisingly stark abdication for a medical doctor who launched his 2015 presidential campaign with a “message of liberty, justice, and personal responsibility.”
Meanwhile, more than a dozen senators and congressmen have self-quarantined while they awaited the results of their own tests.
