Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden's chief medical adviser, said Sunday he wishes former President Donald Trump would use his popularity among Republicans to persuade his followers to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
In a round of interviews on the morning news shows, the government’s top infectious disease expert lamented polling showing that Trump supporters are more likely to refuse to get vaccinated, saying politics needs to be separated from “commonsense, no-brainer” public health measures.
Fauci said it would be a “game changer” for the country’s vaccine efforts if the former president used his “incredible influence” among Republicans.
“If he came out and said, ‘Go and get vaccinated. It’s really important for your health, the health of your family and the health of the country,’ it seems absolutely inevitable that the vast majority of people who are his close followers would listen to him,” Fauci told “Fox News Sunday.”
Trump has urged people to get vaccinated, doing so again late last month at a conservative political gathering in Florida.
But he hasn’t been among former presidents and other public officials who have been vaccinated on camera to encourage others to get the shot. It was revealed only recently that he was vaccinated in private at the White House before leaving office in January.
Trump did not appear in a new public service campaign for the COVID-19 vaccine that included former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.
A recent NPR-PBS NewsHour-Marist poll shows little difference in vaccine hesitancy between white and Black Americans, but there is a sharp partisan divide about getting a COVID-19 vaccine.
Forty-nine percent of Republican men said they would not get the shot, compared to 6% of Democratic men; 47% of Trump voters said they would not get it, compared to 10% of Biden supporters. 34% of Republican women said they would not get the shot compared to 14% of Democratic women.
Overall, 87% of Democrats said they had either gotten the shot or plan to, compared to only 56% of Republican respondents; 44% of Republicans said they would not, or were unsure.
The numbers among Black and white Americans were very similar – 73% of Black people and 70% of white people said they were either planning to get a vaccine or already received one vs. 25% of Black people and 28% white people who said they would not.
Fauci said he doesn’t understand the resistance.
“What is the problem here? This is a vaccine that is going to be lifesaving for millions of people,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He added: “I mean, I just can’t comprehend what the reason for that is when you have a vaccine that’s 94-95% effective and it is very safe. I just don’t get it.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that the Biden adminsitration would welcome Trump's support in promoting the vaccine but added that there are a number of other avenues available to reach reluctant Republicans, including through trusted voices such as doctors, faith leaders and conservative groups.
“Every other living former president — or most of them, if not all of them — has participated in public campaigns [to promote vaccines]. They did not need an engraved invitation to do so,” Psaki said. “So he may decide he should do that. If so, great, but there are a lot of different ways to engage, to reach out to ensure that people of a range of political support and backing know the vaccine is safe and effective.”
When asked by a reporter about Trump's involvement in promoting the COVID-19 vaccine later Monday, President Biden said that "the thing that has more impact than anything Trump would say to the MAGA folks is what the local doctor, what the local preachers, what the local people in the community say."
"So I urge, I urge all local docs, and ministers, and priests to talk about why," Biden said. "Why it's important to get that vaccine, and even after that until everyone is, in fact, vaccinated, to wear this mask."
The number of vaccine doses distributed and administered each day in the U.S. is rising, with more than 2.5 million daily shots in arms on average in the last week.
About 1 in 5 Americans have received at least one dose, with about 1 in 9 fully vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The coronavirus is blamed for over 530,000 deaths in the United States. Deaths and newly confirmed infections per day have tumbled over the past two months. But cases are running at a still-troubling average of about 55,000 a day.
Fauci repeatedly warned against pulling back on public health measures too early, saying the virus could come surging back, endangering the goal of getting the country closer to normal by early July.
He pointed to Europe as a cautionary tale. Rising virus cases this winter followed rollbacks on restrictions on the continent.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.