Rand Paul volunteers at Greenview hospital, says government needs to remove red tape to speed COVID research

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – U.S. Senator Rand Paul has recovered from COVID-19 and was on the front lines of the fight against the virus Wednesday morning at TriStar Regional Greenview Hospital.

“It’s exciting to emerge from quarantine,” said Paul who is volunteering at the hospital where his children were born. “I’m no longer a patient. I get to go back to being a doctor. It’s nice to be able to help out.

“I’ve had the disease. Most people will survive. It is something serious. We need to be concerned about it. But the great thing is is most people are going to be like me. Most people are going to survive, and I want to be part of anything I can do to help out so I’ve been rounding with the hospitalists, the experts here and trying to help out as much as I can and really just try to keep the patients in good spirits that have the virus that are sick that there’s really hope that they can get better and they will go home and they will be able to lead normal lives, and most people will.”

Paul has listened as medical professionals call for a need for more testing that produces quicker test results.

“The hospital wants more testing,” he said.

“Inevitably there are going to be people like me in the community who didn’t have many symptoms but somehow got immune to this,” he said.

Paul said he is immune to the illness because he has already had COVID-19.

“We do need more testing, more rapid testing. That’s more of a national problem.  I think we’re getting there. It’s better than it was a week ago. It’s better than it was two weeks ago.

“One of the things is there is a lot of government red tape. I’ve worked over the last several weeks to remove red tape,” he said.

There are advances coming in the fight against COVID-19 but lawmakers need to prevent government regulations from slowing that process, he said.

There are multiple labs on college campuses throughout the country that could provide valuable research, he said.

“They are talking about voting on something as soon as tomorrow,” Paul said of Congress. However, he thinks Congress will be out of session for “quite a while” beyond that. Paul has plans to continue to volunteer at the hospital where he has held privileges for several years.

Paul is an opthalmologist.

Greenview hospital chief executive officer Mike Sherrod welcomed Paul’s assistance at the hospital.

“Sen. Paul has been lifting the spirits of our patients and our colleagues by volunteering at TriStar Greenview,” Sherrod said. “We want to recognize Sen. Paul for what he is doing for our community and also recognizing our healthcare workers and our providers for their unwavering response to the COVID-19 pandemic.”