In an interview today on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said a vaccine mandate for domestic air travel is worth considering. Fauci is President Biden’s chief coronavirus advisor.
Also today, Fauci warned against big New Year’s Eve parties. CNN’s Kaitlyn Collins asked Fauci, “what is your advice to people about larger settings for New Year’s parties?”
Fauci said, “Kaitlyn, I would stay away from that … when you’re talking about a New Year’s Eve party, we have 30, 40, 50 people celebrating, you do not know the status of their vaccination, I would recommend strongly stay away from that this year. There will be other years to do that, but not this year.” But there may very well be new strains of the coronavirus next year, as the coronavirus continues to evolve and mutate into new strains and variants.
Fauci said there were 214,000 new cases of COVID reported yesterday alone in America, and although those cases are almost always mild in vaccinated people, “we still could have a surge on hospitals, particularly among the unvaccinated, which they’re really worried about.”
Asked about the high demand for rapid, at-home COVID tests, and the resulting nationwide shortage of those tests, Fauci admitted the government’s testing response has been “problematic.”
“We had a conflation of high demands — high demands because of the concern about omicron, which is a justifiable concern, but the high demand that was triggered by the holiday season, people getting ready to travel, getting ready to go and mix with family members and friends it’s been a very, very strong run on testing.
“And, you know, obviously not making any excuses for it, we should have had more tests available but hopefully now, as we get into the first couple of weeks in January, that will get much better.”
The federal government’s response to the need for coronavirus tests has been painfully slow compared to the response in most other civilized countries. President Biden has said he is ordering 500 million coronavirus test kits that will be sent to every home in the nation on request, although details on ordering them have not been announced. But those tests won’t be available until later in January at the earliest, too late for holiday travelers and for worried hosts and hostesses who want their guests to be tested before arrival.
In Europe, tests became available much quicker. There, dozens of cheap tests for COVID are easily available from stores and web sites. Those tests can tell you almost immediately whether you have the coronavirus, and they cost very little. But Biden’s FDA officials have made no attempt to get such tests approved in the U.S., even though experts in Europe have already approved them. As science writer Ron Bailey has noted, “the reason that Americans don’t have access to cheap, fast COVID-19 self-tests right now is because the hypercautious regulators at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have been ridiculously slow to approve such tests. In fact, many of the self-tests widely and cheaply available now in Europe were developed here in the U.S. As the pandemic has worn on, FDA incompetence stymied the competitive processes that in private markets would have provided cheap, fast COVID-19 self-tests.”
Biden could have gotten the FDA bureaucrats to move faster, the way Trump speeded up innovation with Operation Warp Speed by getting the FDA bureaucrats to hurry up. But Biden was too lazy to do that.
Now, it’s being reported that experts approached the White House with the idea to produce millions of COVID tests in time for the holidays — but were turned down by the Biden administration. This month, the Biden administration promised it will make 500 million tests available to the American people — but as the New York Times reports, “Americans will have to wait” weeks or more before that happens.
In a December 27 interview with MSNBC, Fauci said, “We are in a tough situation with omicron,” given its transmissibility and continuing substantial numbers of hospitalizations. “It’s not something to be taken lightly,” he said, despite evidence that the latest mutation may cause milder disease.
The White House, when asked for comment about Fauci’s suggestion that vaccination be required for air travel, referred CNBC to Biden’s statement to ABC News last week, when Biden said, “It’s been considered,but the recommendation I’ve gotten, it’s not necessary.”
The travel industry, meanwhile, expressed opposition to a vaccine mandate for domestic travel when Fauci made a similar suggestion in September.
International travelers must already show proof of vaccination and a negative Covid test in order to board a U.S.-bound flight, and also wear a mask.
U.S., airlines have canceled more than 2,000 flights since Friday, due partly to outbreaks among staff, some of whom have contracted the new omicron strain of the coronavirus.
