The president of the American Medical Association is calling for mandated COVID-19 vaccinations for the public.
“Now is the time for the public and private sectors to come together, listen to the science, and mandate vaccination,” AMA President Gerald Harmon, M.D., said in a statement late last week.
A survey the AMA conducted in June found 96% of practicing U.S. physicians had already been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. But the rest of the nation lags far behind when it comes to getting the shots. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention a little more than half of the Americans have gotten vaccinated so far.
Harmon argued state lotteries encouraging people to get vaccinated haven’t been effective and the only way “out of this pandemic” was through a broad public vaccine requirement.
“Unless a significant percentage of our population is vaccinated against COVID-19, we could be stuck fighting this virus for many more months or even years to come,” Harmon said.
A little more than half of respondents to a recent poll by the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research supported vaccine mandates in the workplace.
