Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s top medical advisor, told MSNBC’s Ari Melber Monday that he preferred using the word “requirement” instead of “mandate” because the latter has a “tinge to it.”
Fauci was asked about states that have implemented executive orders or legislation limiting vaccine and mask mandates, with Melber specifically referencing Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Fauci said that mandates work, but also that he prefers to call them “requirements.”
“We do know that mandates, or let’s call them requirements, mandate has a special little tinge to it, that requirements work,” Fauci said. (RELATED: REPORT: Fauci Spotted Maskless At Elite DC Media Party)
“If you look at what’s happened with United Airlines, about 99% of their employees are vaccinated, Tyson’s Food, Houston Methodist Medical System, they do work,” he continued. “We also know from good studies that masks work. They’re not 100%, but they do work in preventing infection.”
Biden’s vaccine mandate for companies employing more than 100 people has been tied up in a court battle since being announced earlier in November, but a number of states, cities and private businesses have continued to enforce their own mandates for certain activities and groups of people in the meantime.
“Anything that gets in the way of containing that, I think we better think twice before we start pushing it,” Fauci added. “And that’s the reason why we would love to have a situation where you don’t have requirements, where people would see why it’s so important not only to protect themselves and their families, but to fulfill their societal responsibility to get us out of this historic outbreak, and that’s the reason why you have vaccine requirements.”