Utah Gov. Spencer Cox.Photo: Rick Bowmer/AP/Shutterstock
As the number of Americans who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 begins to plateau, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox acknowledged that partisanship is partially to blame, telling CBS’Face the Nationover the weekend he finds it “troubling” that “everything is political.”
Cox, a Republican, made the remarks during a Sunday interview that coincided with the Biden administration’s goal of having at least 70% of the U.S. adult population vaccinated.
The White House ultimately did not meet that goal, with roughly 67% of American adults now vaccinated amid a resistance among those in conservative regions of the country to get the shots.
Cox, 45, attributed the 64% vaccination rate in his own state of Utah to partisanship.
“Well, it’s troubling… that politics is becoming religion in our country, that politics is becoming sport and entertainment in our country, that everything is political. It’s a huge mistake,” Cox said. “And it’s caused us to make bad decisions during this pandemic and in other phases of our life as well. So it’s deeply troubling.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House chief medical adviser, has previously warned that vaccine hesitancy could create “two types of America,” one in which people are vaccinated and one in which they are not.
Several Republican governors of states with lagging vaccine rates have urged residents toget the jab. Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson saidon CNN’s State of the Union on Sundaythat his state is in “a race,” with just32% of peoplefully vaccinated.
“If we stopped right here, and we didn’t get a greater per cent of our population vaccinated, then we’re going to have trouble in the next school year and over the winter,” Hutchinson said.
PresidentJoe Bidenspoke about the need to ramp up the vaccination rate inremarks delivered Tuesday, encouraging employers to give their workers paid time off to get their shots, and announcing expanded access via more mobile clinics.
“Think about where you were last year, where you are today,” the president said. “What you were able to do last year at this time and do today. It’s a year of hard-fought progress. We can’t get complacent now.”
Meanwhile, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a Tuesday briefing that the administration would continue building on efforts to increase the numbers of vaccinated people across the country.
“You don’t just give up just because you haven’t reached every single person,” Psaki said Tuesday. “We’re going to continue to apply where we, what we’ve seen have been the best practices over the past several months.”
The push to increase the number of vaccinations comes as at a time when federal officials are warning about theDelta variant, which is expected to cause “very dense Outbreaks” in undervaccinated states.
The highly contagious strain currently makes up 20.6% of all COVID-19 cases in the U.S.
In a June interview with CNN, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said areas of the highest concern are rural and southern states where fewer people are vaccinated, such as Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Wyoming.
“It’s not going to be as pervasive. It’s going to hyper-regionalized,” Gottlieb told CNN. “There’s certain pockets of the country where you’re going to have very dense outbreaks.”
In a recent White House briefing, Fauci called the Delta variant “currently the greatest threat in the U.S. to our attempt to eliminate COVID-19.”
source: people.com
