Dr. Anthony Fauci made it clear Sunday that he believed vaccine requirements for domestic flights were still on the table.
Fauci joined ABC’s “This Week” and discussed the continued surge of cases of COVID-19 — particularly the now-dominant Omicron variant — with host Jonathan Karl, and he argued that “anything that could get people more vaccinated” should certainly be a consideration for President Joe Biden and his administration.
“Let me ask you about something else from the president’s interview with David,” Karl began, referencing Biden’s interview just before Christmas with ABC’s David Muir. “David asked about the vaccine, the lack of a vaccine requirement for air travel. There is no vaccine requirement for domestic air travel in the United States, and when the president was asked, should there be one, he said that his team has said it’s not necessary at this point. Do you agree with that? There shouldn’t be a vaccine requirement for domestic air travel?”
“Well, it depends on what you want to use it for,” Fauci, who currently serves as Biden’s chief medical adviser, replied. “I mean, vaccine requirements for people coming in from other countries is to prevent newly-infected people from getting into the country.”
“A vaccine requirement for a person getting on the plane is just another level of getting people to have a mechanism that would spur them to get vaccinated,” Fauci continued. “Mainly you can’t get on a plane unless you’re vaccinated, which is just another one of the ways of getting requirements, whatever that might be. So I mean, anything that could get people more vaccinated would be welcome.”
“Anything that could get people more vaccinated would be welcome,” Dr. Anthony Fauci says when asked by @jonkarl about potential vaccine requirements for domestic air travel. https://t.co/CxSdhhlI9G pic.twitter.com/KHVeu6nmTH
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) December 26, 2021
Fauci went on to say that he believed the main barriers to spreading the virus — with regard to domestic air travel — were masking in combination with the advanced filtration systems on planes. Adding a requirement for a vaccine, he said, would be more of a tactic designed to pressure people to get vaccinated.
“That’s what we meant by it depends on what the goal of getting people vaccinated before they get on a domestic flight,” he said.
Karl then pivoted to address former President Donald Trump and his recent comments about the vaccines — one from an interview with Bill O’Reilly and another with The Daily Wire’s Candace Owens.
“I’m sure you saw President Trump — former President Trump came out and said that he had received the booster shot. He actually got booed a little bit by the crowd of his supporters as he said that, and now, you know, there’s another interview he just did with a conservative outlet with Candace Owens where he really pushed back on the idea that the vaccine is not protecting people. He said people going to hospitals are the ones largely that haven’t been vaccinated. You don’t die if you get the vaccine. Those were Donald Trump’s words. It’ll be interesting to see if his supporters listen to that,” he said.
“Well, I certainly hope so, Jon. We’ll take anything we can get about getting people vaccinated,” Fauci replied. I was a bit dismayed when former President Trump came out and made that statement, and his followers booed him. Which I was stunned by that. I mean, given the fact of how popular he is with that group, that they would boo him which tells me how recalcitrant they are about being told what to do, and his continuing to say people should get vaccinated and articulating that to them in my mind is a good thing. I hope he keeps it up.”\
“Let’s hope he says it loudly and clearly,” Karl agreed.