Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy (La.) on Sunday urged his state to get inoculated amid a nationwide spike in COVID-19 cases, concluding that “all we need to do is get vaccinated” to end the pandemic.
Louisiana is experiencing one of the largest surges in COVID-19 cases, leading to worries about the state’s hospitals.
The state saw 6,116 new cases on Friday, which was up from the less than 1,000 cases Louisiana was averaging per day in June, according to data collected by The New York Times.
“We have it within our power to stop it. Each person that is vaccinated now protects not only herself or himself, but those around them because no longer is she as likely to pass the infection to others,” Cassidy told host Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“If we don’t want this, we have it within our control, all we need to do is to get vaccinated,” he added.
Infections began creeping up nationally last month, driven largely by the highly infectious delta variant which has taken hold in the U.S. as the dominant strain of COVID-19.
Cassidy, who is a doctor, said there are two ways to stop COVID-19 from spreading: get vaccinated or wear a mask.
“If you have a large percentage of your population which is not vaccinated and your infection rate is going up you got one of two choices: if you’re inside, either you’re vaccinated or you have to wear a mask,” Cassidy said.
“Otherwise you’re too great a risk to further spread infection, to further pack those emergency rooms, to further prevent people who have terrible accidents from getting cared for, because the hospital is full of COVID. And there was a choice,” he added.
The Republican senator told Bash that the way to prevent mask mandates is by getting vaccinated.
“On the other hand if we don’t want mass mandates, get vaccinated. The infection rate goes down, and you don’t have a mandate,” he said.