White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci predicted last year he could not foresee a situation in which the government would mandate a coronavirus vaccine.
“I don’t think you’ll ever see a mandating of vaccine, particularly for the general public,” Fauci said during a town hall with Healthline.com in August 2020.
The idea, according to Fauci, was impossible.
“If someone refuses the vaccine in the general public, then there’s nothing you can do about that. You cannot force someone to take a vaccine,” he said at the time.
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Fauci’s prediction has just one caveat: medical professionals.
“When you’re in the medical sector, depending on the policy of a hospital, the hospital may say — if you refuse to take a given vaccine, whether that’s a hepatitis vaccine, or a flu vaccine or perhaps even the COVID vaccine, that you might not be able to have person-to-person contact with patients,” he predicted.
Less than 12 months later, residents of Washington, D.C., and San Francisco have been required to prove one of the widely available coronavirus vaccinations to enter restaurants, gyms, or entertainment venues.
Also, all federal employees, including military members, have been required to receive the vaccine.
Just last month, President Joe Biden‘s chief medical adviser changed his mind from last year and advocated for more vaccine mandates.
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“I have been of this opinion, and I remain of that opinion that I do believe at the local level, Jake, there should be more mandates,” Fauci told CNN’s State of the Union host, Jake Tapper. “There really should be. We’re talking about [a] life-and-death situation. We’ve lost 600,000 Americans already, and we’re still losing more people.”
Dr. Fauci also called for the Food and Drug Administration to approve the vaccine so “a lot more mandates” could be implemented.
“This is serious business, so I am in favor of that,” he said. “You know, one of the things that will happen, and I think the hesitancy at the local level of doing mandates is because the vaccines have not been officially, fully approved, but people need to understand that the amount of data right now that shows a high degree of effectiveness and a high degree of safety is more than we’ve ever seen with emergency use authorization.”
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Tags: Anthony Fauci, Coronavirus, Mandate, White House
Original Author: Lawrence Richard
Original Location: Last year, Fauci said ‘you cannot force someone’ to get COVID-19 vaccine