Senator Rand Paul blasts 'left-wing cretins' at YouTube who blocked him for a WEEK for video saying most over-the-counter masks don't stop COVID spread

YouTube suspended Republican Senator Rand Paul for seven days on Tuesday night for posting a video disputing whether masks stop the spread of COVID.

'Most of the masks you get over the counter don’t work. They don’t prevent infection,' Paul of Kentucky said in the video which has been taken down.

'Trying to shape human behavior isn't the same as following the actual science, which tells us that cloth masks don’t work,' he added.

A YouTube spokesperson said Paul's claims in the three-minute clip violated their policy on COVID medical misinformation.

The company, owned by Google, states that videos will be taken if they claim that 'masks do not play a role in preventing the contraction of transmission of COVID-19'.

Paul responded with outrage on Twitter after YouTube announced the ban and called it a 'badge of honor'.

He also included a link to watch the video on a different platform, Liberty Tree. 

'Leftwing cretins at Youtube banning me for 7 days for a video that quotes 2 peer reviewed articles saying cloth masks don’t work,’ he lamented.

Senator Rand Paul was suspended from YouTube for a week after his second offense violating their policy on spreading misinformation about coronavirus

The video was removed by YouTube. The site says videos will be taken down if they state 'masks do not play a role in preventing the contraction of transmission of COVID-19'

Paul called his suspension 'a badge of honor' and doubled-down on claiming 'cloth masks don't work' 

This was Paul's first of three strikes, according to YouTube. The punishments start with a one week ban and get worse for each infraction.

YouTube removed last week an eight-minute Newsmax interview on Paul’s channel where he said “there’s no value” in wearing masks. For this, he received a warning and the subsequent violation this week was part of the ‘first strike’ response to a second offense.

Paul, who was a practicing ophthalmology before becoming a U.S. senator, has engaged in multiple public skirmishes with Dr. Anthony Fauci over the origins of coronavirus and whether the U.S. helped fund the Wuhan lab where it leaked from.

The Kentucky Republican was removed from YouTube hours after Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene was issued a week-long suspension from Twitter for saying vaccines were 'failing' because Americans were still getting infected.

A Twitter spokesperson told DailyMail.com that Greene's account 'will be in read-only mode for a week due to repeated violations of the Twitter Rules.'

One of Paul's videos was removed last week for COVID misinformation. He released a response video lamenting of the removal. On the first offense, YouTube issues a warning and upon a second infraction issues a 'first strike' one-week suspension

Paul lamented of tech censorship and posted a link to a video response to his video's removal last week

The Georgia Republican tweeted Monday night that the 'The FDA should not approve the covid vaccines. There are too many reports of infection & spread of #COVID19 among vaccinated people.'

'These vaccines are failing & do not reduce the spread of the virus & neither do masks,' she wrote.

'Vaccine mandates & passports violate individual freedoms,' the congresswoman added.

Fully vaccinated people are still contracting COVID-19, but data shows they're being protected against severe disease, hospitalization and death.

As of July 26, the latest date for which data is available, there were at least 6,587 so-called 'breakthrough' cases reported among 163 million fully vaccinated individuals.

Of those cases, 6,239 resulted in hospitalization and 1,263 peopled died.

Twitter flagged the tweet saying it contained misleading information. It also blocked users from retweeting or liking the message.

'The Tweet you referenced was labeled in line with our COVID-19 misleading information policy. The account will be in read-only mode for a week due to repeated violations of the Twitter Rules,' a Twitter spokesperson told DailyMail.com.

Twitter has a five-strike rule for users who spread COVID-19 misinformation.

CNN first reported her suspension.

Greene sent a statement to The Washington Examiner that continued to complain there’s a double standard over vaccinations and mask wearing between Democrats and Republicans. 

She also complained about conservatives being targeted by double standards.

'Why does Dr. Fauci only harshly criticize bikers at Sturgis riding in open air with no masks but is silent on Obama's "sophisticated" birthday party super-spreader event for Hollywood and Democrat elites? Why is it right and moral to allow tens of thousands of COVID positive "migrants" into our country and ship them all over to every state in the taxpayer’s dime yet force our children to mask up for school?' she mused.

Greene tweeted Monday night that the FDA should not approve the COVID vaccines because there were 'too many reports' of breakthrough cases. Twitter marked the tweet misleading and blocked users from interacting with it 

'But if MTG dare says the truth, Twitter suspends me because the truth is so offensive to the fragile hypocrites all over Twitter!' she said, referring to herself in the third-person.

'They will allow porn on Twitter. They will allow posts about parents transitioning their children and changing their gender on Twitter. But Twitter won’t allow any real discussion of the truth from an elected congresswoman because Twitter only cares about the Democrats communist agenda for America,' she continued.

'Good thing my voters could care less about Twitter,' the Georgia Republican added.

CNN estimated that Greene only had one strike to go before she was permanently banned from the platform.

In July, Greene was banned from Twitter for 12 hours after two of her tweets on COVID-19 were labeled misleading.

The Georgia congresswoman has also refused to wear a mask in Congress despite the Capitol Physician issuing a mandate after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidelines last month that vaccinated people should return to wearing masks indoors. 

The House issues fines for those who do noy comply with compulsory mask wearing.

The first fine is $500 and $2,500 each time afterwards.

Greene got suspended from Twitter for 12 hours in July after Twitter said she violated their COVID misinformation policy with two tweets 

Her second said that COVID is 'not dangerous for non-obese people and those under 65'

THE TRUTH ABOUT FACE MASKS: WHAT STUDIES HAVE SHOWN AND EXPERTS HAVE SAID 

Research on how well various types of masks and face coverings varies but, recently, and in light of the pandemic of COVID-19, experts are increasingly leaning toward the notion that something is better than nothing. 

But before the virus started spreading across the US, Dr Fauci advised Americans not to wear masks.

He has since changed his tune, but there is an ongoing debate on what are the most effective masks.

On August 3, ex-Biden adviser Michael Osterholm warned that 'many of the face cloth coverings that people wear are not very effective'.

He told CNN people need to start wearing N95 respirators which are more effective against COVID-19.

'We're in a very unfortunate situation, we've really brought this country to a point of confusion which really misses the main point that we should be focusing on vaccine, vaccine, vaccine.'

The director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, explained his contention with the term 'masking' saying, 'You know I wish we could get rid of the term masking because in fact it implies that anything you put in front of your face works and if I could just add an nuance to that which hopefully doesn't add more confusion is we know today that many of the face cloth coverings that people wear are not very effective in reducing any of the virus movement in or out.'

In November, a study from the University of Copenhagen suggested that face masks may only offer limited protection against COVID.

Researchers found there was no statistically significant difference in the number of people who contacted the virus in a group wearing masks in public compared to a group that did not do so.

The research team did say that the findings should not be used as an argument against wearing masks. 

The study, which was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, was carried out in April and May when Danish authorities did not recommend wearing face coverings.

A University of Oxford study published on March 30 concluded that surgical masks are just as effective at preventing respiratory infections as N95 masks for doctors, nurses and other health care workers. 

It's too early for their to be reliable data on how well they prevent infection with COVID-19, but the study found the thinner, cheaper masks do work in flu outbreaks. 

The difference between surgical or face masks and N95 masks lies in the size of particles that can - and more importantly, can't - get though the materials. 

N95 respirators are made of thick, tightly woven and molded material that fits tightly over the face and can stop 95 percent of all airborne particles, while surgical masks are thinner, fit more loosely, and more porous. 

This makes surgical masks much more comfortable to breathe and work in, but less effective at stopping small particles from entering your mouth and nose. 

Droplets of saliva and mucous from coughs and sneezes are very small, and viral particles themselves are particularly tiny - in fact, they're about 20-times smaller than bacteria. 

For this reason, a JAMA study published this month still contended that people without symptoms should not wear surgical masks, because there is not proof the gear will protect them from infection - although they may keep people who are coughing and sneezing from infecting others. 

But the Oxford analysis of past studies- which has not yet been peer reviewed - found that surgical masks were worth wearing and didn't provide statistically less protection than N95 for health care workers around flu patients. 

However, any face mask is only as good as other health and hygiene practices. Experts universally agree that there's simply no replacement for thorough, frequent hand-washing for preventing disease transmission. 

Some think the masks may also help to 'train' people not to touch their faces, while others argue that the unfamiliar garment will just make people do it more, actually raising infection risks. 

So what about cloth coverings? Although good quality evidence is lacking, some data suggest that cloth masks may be only marginally (15 per cent) less effective than surgical masks in blocking emission of particles, said Babak Javid, principal investigator at Cambridge University Hospitals wrote in the BMJ on April 9.

He pointed to a study led by Public Health England in 2013 which found wearing some kind of material over the face was fivefold more effective than not wearing masks for preventing a flu pandemic.

The study suggested that a homemade mask 'should only be considered as a last resort to prevent droplet transmission from infected individuals, but it would be better than no protection'.