"We have a problem of people wanting to vaccinate," Fauci stated. "So what we need to do is we need to get people to appreciate the importance of not only getting vaccinated but by keeping their boosters up to date because the data that show the difference in the severity of disease between the unvaccinated and the unvaccinated and vaccinated with boost is dramatically different."
Last September, the country's leading infectious disease specialist announced that he thought the "optimal regimen" of vaccination for COVID-19 would include booster shots.
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Both the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration has announced boosters are necessary, as the COVID vaccines' effectiveness wanes over time and against variants.
According to NPR, roughly half of vaccinated Americans have gotten a single booster, and just a quarter of people 50 and older have gotten the second booster recommended for that age group.
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Health officials are hoping a reformulated booster for fall to better match the most recent virus variants might garner more interest from the public.
Pfizer's and Moderna's CEOs have backed the federal agencies' and Fauci's booster recommendations, stating people will need boosters of their vaccines starting in the fall.
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Fauci has further pressed for COVID-19 boosters for children and has frequently been challenged by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
"The government recommends a booster for children despite Fauci admittedly not having any evidence to support their decision," Paul tweeted in June, along with a video of a tense exchange between the two. "That's not science. That's conjecture. And we should not be making public policy on it."
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In December 2020, Fauci admitted that the figures he quoted to achieve herd immunity against the virus were guesstimates.
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"We really don't know the real number," he explained to The New York Times. "I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90%. But I'm not going to say 90%. When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75%."
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The Post Millennial reports that President Joe Biden's COVID czar Dr. Ashish Jha reversed course on two years of public guidance and said social distancing was probably "not the right way" to approach COVID prevention.
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