• The White House missed its goal of vaccinating 70% of US adults by July 4 amid vaccine hesitancy.
• Fauci said he supports vaccine mandates at the local level, like at schools and businesses.
• He also said the vaccines are as good as approved, but that formal full approval may help combat hesitancy.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday he believes there should be more COVID-19 vaccine mandates at the local level, though he continues to say the federal government will not mandate them.

Fauci, the longtime director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was speaking on CNN’s State of the Union when Jake Tapper asked him if he supports local vaccine mandates at places like schools and businesses.

“I do believe at the local level there should be more mandates,” Fauci said. “We’re talking about life-and-death situation. We’ve lost 600,000 Americans already, and we’re still losing more people. There’ve been 4 million deaths worldwide, so I am in favor of that.”