Fauci says Governor Ivey “has every right to be frustrated” by Alabama’s low vaccination rate

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Dr. Anthony Fauci said on CNN Sunday morning that Governor Kay Ivey “has every right to be frustrated” by the country’s worst COVID-19 vaccination rate. But he said more politicians and influencers need to invite Americans to film the shot.

In response to a question from CNN’s Jake Tapper if he “shares[s] Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical advisor, said he was “extremely disappointed” with the masses of Americans who have yet to receive a vaccine.

“I can totally understand the governor’s frustration. So I have no problem with that; she has every right to be frustrated,” Fauci said on Sunday morning talk show, State of the Union. “But what I would really like to see is more and more Leaders in those areas that haven’t been vaccinated to go out and talk to encourage people to get vaccinated.”

Fauci added that he was “very relieved” to see politicians like US Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, both Republicans like Ivy, calling for people to be vaccinated. But he said more needs to be done to slow the spread of the delta variable.

“We should get more people who get along well with people who aren’t vaccinated to get out there and encourage them to get vaccinated as well as trusted messengers in the community,” Fauci told Tapper. “We just have to do better, Jake, because we have the tools to do it. This is an unnecessary predicament we are getting ourselves into.”

As of Thursday, Alabama was the only state in the country where less than 40% of the eligible population had been fully vaccinated against COVID, according to federal data. Meanwhile, the seven-day average of new cases in Alabama has risen more than 500% since July 4, and the number of hospitalizations due to COVID has increased more than 300%.

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