Dr. Anthony Fauci said he does not think the government will require people to get coronavirus inoculations.
“I don’t think you’ll ever see a mandating of vaccine particularly for the general public,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Tuesday during an interview with Healthline.
Fauci added that he would “be pretty surprised if you mandated it for any element of the general public.”
A Gallup poll conducted between late July and early August found that only 65% of all U.S. adults would take an FDA-approved vaccine for COVID-19, while 35% of people said they would not. Among Democrats, 81% said they would get the vaccine while less than half of Republicans said the same.
Fauci said he doesn’t think there is really anything the United States can do about people who refuse to get vaccinated during the health crisis.
“They have the right to refuse a vaccine,” he said. “I don’t think you need a contingency plan. 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.”
