PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — One of the leading voices on COVID-19 vaccines believes it may be time for mandates.
Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, sits on the FDA’s Vaccine Advisory Committee.
He said the United States was able to solve the initially hard parts of the vaccine, first by creating them, then by testing and mass producing them.
“You solved the access issue," Dr. Offit said.
"I think they’ve done a good job of educating. They’ve tried to provide incentives."
But Dr. Offit said even the best of efforts to try to decrease misinformation has not been effective enough.
"A solid 30-plus percent of the American public is saying, 'We don’t want to get vaccinated,'" he said.
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Dr. Offit said over the next four to six months, he expects the conversation to focus on mandates.
“At this point, we’ve hit the wall, and we’re going to have to compel people to vaccinate.”
Dr. Offit said he understands rights to make personal decisions.
"It’s a country founded on the basis of individual rights and freedoms, especially religious freedoms," he said.
"We claim freedoms often, including freedoms we don’t have, like this one which is the freedom to catch and transmit a potentially fatal infection.”
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For example, he said if someone steps on a rusty nail and is recommended to get a tetanus shot, they can decline and get tetanus, and that’s on them because tetanus isn’t contagious.
But, Dr. Offit said, COVID-19 is different.
“These aren’t decisions you’re just making for yourself," Dr. Offit said.
"People who are catching these viruses are catching them from other people, typically people who aren’t vaccinated.”
Dr. Offit said it's clear that areas with higher vaccination rates have lower infection rates, and the vast majority of hospitalizations and death are among people who aren’t vaccinated.
“I would have thought they would have been compelled by the fact that more than 620,000 people have died from this virus, and you can avoid dying by getting the vaccine," he said.
Dr. Offit explained that with previous infection and vaccinations, he estimates about 65% of the country has some sort of immunity.
However, he said that with the more transmissible delta variant, we need to reach about 90% to get to “herd immunity.”