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US needs ‘to do much better’ on Covid vaccine uptake

Only about a third of the US population has had a booster vaccination, says Dr Anthony Fauci.

The Chief Medical Advisor to President Joe Biden, Dr Anthony Fauci, has told the Âé¶čÉç the United States is “not doing very well” on Covid vaccine uptake.

Noting that roughly two-thirds of the US population are fully vaccinated and only a third has had a booster vaccine, Dr Fauci said “we need to do much better”.

Speaking to Hardtalk’s Stephen Sackur, Dr Fauci responded to President Biden’s comment that “the pandemic is over”, asserting that the President "could have used better words”. Dr Fauci said that although the US was “much better off” than it had been, technically speaking the Covid-19 pandemic was “not over” .

The United States has over a million Covid deaths, far higher than any other country.

Despite Dr Fauci’s previous prediction that Covid would be “behind us” by now, an average of about 400 people in the country continue to die each day. Dr Fauci acknowledged that even when compared to “low and middle-income countries” the US has not fared well.

Dr Fauci, who will step down in December after advising US Presidents for 38 years, insisted that President Biden “takes the Covid outbreak very seriously”.

When asked whether Biden’s statement was damaging to trust and public health, Dr Fauci considered that characterisation to be “a bit unfair”.

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