U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio is doubling down on his assertion that masks are not necessarily the way to go to combat the transmission of COVID-19.
Rubio followed up Thursday on a Wednesday video mocking what he called a “mask fetish.“.
The Thursday sequel did not delve into discussions of fetishism, but it did reinforce themes from the Wednesday footage in just over two minutes of runtime, with Rubio again contending Americans can’t rely on masks to stem the pandemic.
Rubio said mask mandates wouldn’t address vectors of transmission, including weekend cookouts at people’s homes.
“The problem with this mask mandate, talk about mask mandates, is a lot of these infections aren’t happening at a Publix, a CVS, or a Walgreens,” Rubio said. “They’re happening because people are getting together on a Saturday night for a barbecue and it’s not realistic, people aren’t going to wear a mask in those settings, they’re not going to do it.”
“You cannot mask your way out of this,” Rubio said.
Rubio began conversationally, outlining his struggles in talking about what he called a “recent COVID uptick that we’ve been seeing,” which he described as a “complex issue.”
“It’s a complicated issue,” the second-term Senator added. “On one side, you have people who are just tired of being told what to do. Like after a year and a half of being told what to do and being lectured at.”
We don’t have a hospital surge because vaccinated people stopped wearing masks
We have a surge because not enough people have been vaccinated pic.twitter.com/Ul53Uw0WYG
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 5, 2021
Rubio said those people who have been worn down by government mandates were “traumatized” by potential business closures or because “their kids aren’t going to be able to go back to school for another year.”
“They don’t want to hear about it. They got vaccinated and they’re done. If they get a cold, which is what COVID is, they’re willing to do that,” Rubio contended.
This article first appeared at Florida Politics.
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This article appears in Aug 5-11, 2021.
