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- The White House missed its goal of vaccinating 70% of American adults by July 4 due to reluctance to vaccinate.
- Fauci said he supports immunization mandates at the local level, such as in schools and businesses.
- He also said the vaccines were pretty much approved, but that full formal approval could help tackle the hesitation.
- See more stories on the Insider business page.
Dr Anthony Fauci said on Sunday that he believes there should be more local COVID-19 vaccine mandates, although he continues to say the federal government will not mandate them.
Fauci, longtime director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was speaking on CNN’s State of the Union when Jake Tapper asked if he supports local vaccination mandates in places like schools and businesses.
“I think at the local level there should be more mandates,” Fauci said. “We are talking about life and death. We have already lost 600,000 Americans and we are still losing more people. There have been 4 million deaths in the world, so I am in favor of that.”
Read more: How anti-vaxxers are designing a wave of legal battles to tackle mandatory Covid workplace jabs
Fauci said he believed that one of the reasons groups were reluctant to impose vaccines was that they had not been fully approved. The coronavirus vaccines used in the United States have received emergency use authorization, which can be used by the Food and Drug Administration during public health emergencies. But Fauci said the data behind the vaccines is robust.
“The amount of data currently showing a high degree of effectiveness and a high degree of safety is more than we’ve ever seen with an emergency use authorization,” he said. “These vaccines are as good as officially approved, with all dotted I’s and crossed T’s.”
Fauci said they haven’t received full approval due to the processes that need to take place at the FDA, but that “it’s like it’s done.” He predicted that once officially approved, there could be more local mandates.
About 59% of American adults are fully vaccinated, as the United States has failed to meet the White House target of inoculating 70% of adults by July 4.
At a conservative political action conference in Dallas, Texas on Saturday, a crowd applauded the United States for not hitting its vaccination target. Speaking on CNN, Fauci called the reaction “horrible.”
“They’re encouraging someone who says it’s a good thing for people not to try to save their lives,” he said.
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