“CBS This Morning” co-host Gayle King said Monday during an interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci that she is banning unvaccinated relatives from attending her Thanksgiving celebration this year.
Ms. King made the comment while lamenting that certain members of her family account for the percentage of Americans who still haven’t gotten vaccinated or don’t plan to.
“Dr. Fauci, I don’t know many more times you can say to people, ‘Listen, it will save your life,’” she said in a clip highlighted by Mediaite. “I have this problem with some members of my own family, which I’m now going to ban for Thanksgiving vacation.
“That’s how strongly I’m taking what you’re saying,” she added.
Dr. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the White House’s chief medical adviser, warned of the dangers the COVID-19 delta variant could pose to predominantly unvaccinated regions of the country. He said he supported the Biden administration’s efforts to push the vaccine at the local level, including sending “not federal officials, but community people” door to door to promote it.
Dr. Fauci has warned repeatedly that vaccine holdouts are preventing the country from moving on from the pandemic and that “two Americas” may develop between vaccinated and unvaccinated regions.
During an appearance Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” he expressed shock at a clip of attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas cheering a statement by conservative author Alex Berenson that the government had failed to vaccinate 90% of the population.
“It’s horrifying,” Dr. Fauci told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “I mean, they’re cheering about someone saying that it’s a good thing for people not to try and save their lives.
“I mean, if you just unpack that for a second,” he continued, “it’s almost frightening to say, ‘Hey, guess what, we don’t want you to do something to save your life. Yay!’ Everybody starts screaming and clapping. I just don’t get that. I don’t think that anybody who is thinking clearly can get that. What is that all about? I don’t understand that, Jake.”
Dr. Fauci said he supported vaccine mandates “at the local level,” such as in businesses and schools.
Health, The New York Today
