Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top US infectious disease expert, said on Monday that the United States should consider vaccinating domestic air travel, indicating that with the surge in COVID-19 cases, the idea of ??the Biden administration’s previous avoidance may be accepted.

President Joe Biden (Fauci), chief scientific adviser to the president’s pandemic response, said that such authorization may push up the lagging vaccination rate in the United States and provide stronger protection for flights. Federal regulations for this purpose All people 2 years and older are required to wear a mask.

“When you ask for vaccinations, this is another motivation to get more people vaccinated,” Fauci told MSNBC. “If you want to do this on domestic flights, I think this is something that should be seriously considered.”

So far, the Biden administration has been reluctant to impose vaccination requirements on domestic air travel. Two officials said that Biden’s scientific advisers have not yet made formal recommendations to the president on such requests.

Officials who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations said that vaccinations on planes could raise a series of logistical and legal issues.

The United States currently requires that most foreign citizens traveling to the United States must be fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, but citizens and permanent residents only need to show a negative test certificate within one day after boarding.

Federal regulations do not require people traveling by air in the United States to test negative. Hawaii requires travelers to undergo tests or produce proof of vaccination to avoid mandatory quarantine.

Biden did not answer questions about whether he is considering implementing domestic air travel vaccination requirements, but he told reporters that the issue was discussed on the phone with the US governor on Monday morning.

Speaking of the call before leaving the White House, Biden said: “They asked Dr. Fauci some more questions, including whether he thought he would move home for testing — I mean, flying in the air, etc. “For his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

Earlier this year, the White House discussed domestic vaccination requirements for flights, or requirements for vaccination or proof of a negative test. However, officials are not in a hurry to mandate vaccination for domestic air travel because they anticipate that this will face direct legal challenges, thereby weakening its potential effectiveness as a tool to promote vaccination.

When asked last week why Biden did not mandate vaccinations for domestic air travel, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told MSNBC, “We know that wearing masks on airplanes is possible and very effective now.”

“We also know that implementing additional restrictions may delay flights and may have additional impact,” she added. “But if the impact on health is overwhelming, we will do it. So we always rely on the advice of our health and medical experts. This is not a step they think we need to take.”

According to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 241 million Americans (approximately 77% of the eligible population aged 5 years and older) have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine. However, officials believe that these figures are somewhat overestimated due to recording errors in the strengthening of injection management.

Since the summer, the Biden administration has accepted various vaccination requirements as a way to get unvaccinated Americans to roll up their sleeves. It establishes requirements for vaccination of federal workers, federal contractors, and health care workers, and employers with 100 or more employees set vaccination or testing requirements for their employees.

These vaccination requirements have fallen into a legal dispute, and the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear and debate a case seeking to overturn these requirements on January 7.