Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House medical adviser on the coronavirus, has a simple message to all of America — we need to vaccinate the children.
- “I do believe … that we should vaccinate the children, and there are a number of reasons,” Fauci said, according to CNBC.
Fauci said children are often “vehicles of spread,” who contract the virus and spread it to others, according to CNBC. That’s especially the case when children are asymptomatic to the coronavirus.
More recently, the delta variant has led to an increased spread of symptomatic cases among children, CNBC reports. Reports have surfaced of children being hospitalized and dying from COVID-19 because of the delta variant.
- “We are almost overrun. We have a lot of children in hospitals now,” Fauci said. “So even though relatively speaking, compared to an adult they don’t get as seriously ill, we have lost more children from SARS-CoV-2 than we ever lose for influenza — and we vaccinate children against influenza.”
In August, Fauci said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that children should be surrounded by other vaccinated people in order to stay safe from COVID-19. Mask mandates in schools and vaccine requirements can help, too.
- “For the kids who can’t get vaccinated, that’s the reason why we’re having a strong recommendation that, in the schools, everybody should wear a mask, whether or not you’re vaccinated.”
- “We’ve got to protect the children,” he said.