Fauci says that amid the COVID-19 pandemic, 'we have to put the communal responsibility ahead of individual preferences'

During an interview with Frances Stead Sellers of the Washington Post, Dr. Anthony Fauci said that it is necessary amid the COVID-19 pandemic to elevate "communal responsibility" over "individual preferences."

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced plans to impose a private sector vaccine mandate in the Big Apple.

"All private sector employers in New York City will be covered by this vaccine mandate as of December 27," the mayor said.

Sellers mentioned the New York City mandate to Fauci and asked, "Is this the kind of mitigation tool that you see in our future, in your professional opinion?"

Fauci answered that, "no one likes to be mandating for people to do things that they might be hesitant to do. But quite frankly, you have to when you're in the middle of what we call a historic experience of the worst pandemic of a respiratory disease in the last hundred years, we have to put the communal responsibility ahead of individual preferences.

"So although no one, myself included, likes to be told what you have to do, sometimes if you don't come to the realization that it is good for yourself, for your family, and for the communal good, then mandates or requirements become necessary," Fauci said.

Fauci, who is President Joe Biden's chief medical advisor and has served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for more than three decades, has been a controversial and polarizing figure during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Vaccine and mask mandates imposed by governments and businesses have sparked significant controversy, with some Americans vigorously opposing the requirements as unacceptable usurpations of individual liberty and bodily autonomy.

During an interview on MSNBC, Fauci said that while it would be preferable for people to get vaccinated voluntarily, if they are not willing to do so, "sometimes you've gotta do things that are unpopular but that clearly supersede individual choices and are directed predominantly at the communal good."

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