Fauci: ‘I agree’ with Newsom vaccine mandate for California students

Anthony Fauci on Sunday voiced support for California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) decision to mandate vaccines for all students once the shots are fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

“I agree with what Gov. Newsom did in California,” Fauci said in an interview on CBS’s “Face The Nation.”

Fauci, who serves as the chief medical adviser for President Biden, added that the idea of mandating vaccinations for students is not new. 

“People need to realize that having a vaccine requirement for schools is not a new, novel thing that is very peculiar or specific to COVID-19,” Fauci noted. “We’ve been doing this for decades.” 

“So when we see pushback on that, it’s as if this never happened before,” Fauci said, adding that his own children had vaccination requirements for illnesses like mumps and measles in order to attend school. 

Fauci’s remarks come after a grim milestone for the United States, which recently surpassed 700,000 COVID-19 deaths. Five million related deaths have been reported worldwide.

“It’s actually ongoing with other vaccines, so let’s do it with a virus that’s very, very serious,” Fauci said on Sunday. 

Newsom’s mandate was announced on Friday and will begin with children above age 12 in grades 7-12. Pending FDA approval, the mandate could be implemented in January 2022 or at the start of the 2022 school year.