A pedestrian walks past a COVID-19 vaccine inoculation billboard in New York, the United States, July 26, 2021. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)
There are a number of lessons to glean from the failures of the current vaccination strategy, including the slow approval from the Food and Drug Administration and the weak voices from "influencers" like professional athletes, said health expert Joseph G. Allen.
NEW YORK, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. vaccination campaign has hit a wall with its voluntary approach, and the only way out of the COVID-19 morass is to mandate vaccines, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
There are a number of lessons to glean from the failures of the current vaccination strategy, including the slow approval from the Food and Drug Administration and the weak voices from "influencers" like professional athletes, said Joseph G. Allen, an associate professor and director of the Healthy Buildings program at Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in his article contributed to the newspaper.
"The only way forward is to start embracing mandates," said the expert, adding that hospitals and health-care clinics must mandate vaccinations as nearly 60 top health-care organizations called for in July, while currently only 45 percent of aides in long-term care and health-care facilities are vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced on Monday that it will require the agency's frontline healthcare workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19, making it the first federal agency to mandate compulsory inoculation.
On Sunday, Anthony Fauci, the country's top infectious disease expert, described himself as being "very frustrated" over the current situation of the pandemic. He said the United States is in an "unnecessary predicament" of soaring case counts, and that the country is "going in the wrong direction." ■
