Biden administration COVID-19 adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said over the weekend that he hopes
CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus vaccines will be fully approved by federal drug regulators in “the next few weeks,” noting in another interview that he believes a “flood” of vaccine mandates will be handed down after that.
With full Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, it’s likely that more institutions and businesses will begin to issue
vaccine mandates. Currently, vaccines made by Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson are being distributed under FDA emergency use authorization.
Speaking on NBC on Aug. 8, Fauci, also the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that he hopes that “it will be within the next few weeks” and “within the month of August.”
If the FDA approves the vaccine, Fauci said, he believes it will drive more Americans to be vaccinated. On Aug. 7, he told USA Today that he expects numerous vaccine-related mandates will be implemented by private entities after they receive FDA approval.
“Organizations, enterprises, universities, colleges that have been reluctant to mandate at the local level will feel much more confident,”
he said. “They can say, ‘If you want to come to this college or this university, you’ve got to get vaccinated. If you want to work in this plant, you have to get vaccinated. If you want to work in this enterprise, you’ve got to get vaccinated. If you want to work in this hospital, you’ve got to get vaccinated.’”
In the USA Today interview, Fauci suggested that more lockdowns would not be needed.
Last week, Fauci said in an interview that vaccinated people carry about the same amount of the Delta variant as unvaccinated people.
“When you look at the level of virus in the nasopharynx of people who are vaccinated who get breakthrough infections, it’s really quite high and equivalent to the level of virus in the nasopharynx of unvaccinated people who get infected,” Fauci said
during a CBS News segment.
But on Aug. 8, Fauci
said he believes the COVID-19 vaccines perform well against the Delta variant, although mainly in protecting an individual from “severe disease.”
“If you give the virus the chance to continue to change, you’re leading to a vulnerability that we might get a worse variant and then that will impact not only the unvaccinated, that will impact the vaccinated because that variant could evade the protection of the vaccine,” Fauci said.
Fauci’s comments come as President Joe Biden’s administration is weighing what levers it can pull to encourage more unvaccinated Americans to receive the vaccine.
Biden recently approved rules requiring federal workers to provide proof of vaccination or face regular testing, mask mandates, and travel restrictions. Biden is also awaiting a formal recommendation from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on potentially requiring U.S. troops to be vaccinated.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Correction: Fauci’s stance on future lockdowns has been corrected. The Epoch Times regrets the error.
