Getty/Kevin Dietsch
- Dr. Anthony Fauci is once again urging Americans to band together to defeat the coronavirus.
- "Put aside all of these issues of concern about liberties and personal liberties and realize we have a common enemy," Fauci said.
- His remarks come as the Delta variant continues to spread rapidly in the US.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's topmost coronavirus expert, is pleading for people who are hesitant to get the vaccine to come together to fight the virus.
In an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday, Fauci asked those individuals to "put aside" any concerns about "personal liberties."
"You have to get the overwhelming proportion of people vaccinated, but you also have to do mitigation, and that gets to the controversial issue of mask wearing, and the mandating of things," he said. "Mandating vaccines, for example, for teachers and … personnel in the school."
The Delta variant is spreading through the country rapidly, and the states with the lowest vaccination rates are at the highest risk.
That variant has been detected in all 50 states, and health officials all over – including Fauci and others across city, state, and federal levels – continue to urge Americans to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. For example, officials in the five states with the lowest vaccination rates – Alabama, Louisiana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Mississippi – have been warning that positive coronavirus cases are shooting up. Many of those cases are attributed to the Delta variant.
"It's the unvaccinated that are doing that, so we have a lot of tasks," he said. "We've got to do mitigation. Put aside all of these issues of concern about liberties and personal liberties and realize we have a common enemy and that common enemy is the virus.
As he's done in the past, Fauci in the CBS interview again urged Americans to realize that it's going to take everyone's participation to overcome the coronavirus.
"We really have to go together to get on top of this," he said. "Otherwise, we're going to continue to suffer as we're seeing right now."
About 51% of the US population is fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Nearly all of the people who've died from COVID-19 in recent months were unvaccinated, according to a report from the Associated Press.