Brett Giroir, the COVID-19 testing czar during the Trump administration, suggested Friday that lockdowns could once again be on the horizon if vaccination rates do not improve.
“If people don’t mask and they don’t get vaccinated, then unfortunately governments are going to be put into the situation of considering lockdowns, which I think would be a disaster,” Giroir warned in a Fox News interview.
“I don’t think they work, I think they’re counter-productive and they’re really horrible for our children. The answer is get vaccinated," he continued.
Giroir's comments come after White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said earlier on Friday that the Biden administration would seek guidance from scientific experts regarding potential lockdowns.
Biden has previously ensured voters that he would not resort to federal lockdowns. However, he also went back on comments from May, when he said that the vaccinated would no longer need masks.
Giroir said that people in high-risk situations should wear a face covering amid the recent surge of COVID infections due to the delta variant because “it will protect you and it will protect others from being infected by you.”
Around 57 percent of Americans have received one dose of the vaccine, while 50 percent have been fully vaccinated against the virus, according to data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
During a separate Fox News interview on “America Reports,” Giroir warned Thursday that it was “just a matter of time” before everyone who is unvaccinated become infected with the new delta variant.
“If you have not been vaccinated, and you have not had COVID before, you will get the delta variant,” he said. “This is so infectious that you will get it.”