ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) — Early this week Dr. Anthony Fauci called out Donald Trump. Tuesday, the former president delivered.
“If he came out and said ‘go and get vaccinated it’s very important,’ it would be very helpful to the effort for that to happen,” Dr. Fauci said Sunday on Fox News.
“I would recommend it. I would recommend it to a lot of people that don’t want to get it. And a lot of those people voted for me. But it’s a great vaccine. It’s a safe vaccine. And it’s something that works,” Trump said Tuesday on Fox News.
Top health officials echo each other, saying, the vaccination process is not political.
“There are no Democratic or Republican viruses, and there are no Democratic or Republican vaccines. This is a simple matter of taking care of people,” Mayo Clinic Dr. Melanie Swift said.
In Minnesota, the vaccine rollout is going well. As of Wednesday 36% of Olmsted County is vaccinated.
“Almost 1.99 million vaccine doses have been administered to Minnesotans,” Minnesota Department of Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm said Wednesday.
“Our 7-day average testing positivity rate is 4%. It’s ticked up a little bit, but still below the caution category,” she said.
Health leaders continue to stress, not letting our guards down.
“My concern is that we prematurely pull back and don’t give the vaccines time to continue to protect the country,” Dr. Fauci said.
“We’re not at the point where we are ready yet to drop all precautions. It’s springtime, we see the buds coming out, the flowers blooming, and like yesterday they can get hit with a big snowstorm. We don’t want to poke our little heads out of our safety precautions and get hit with a late winter of COVID,” Dr. Swift said.
