American Medical Association calls for public, private sectors to mandate vaccines

The American Medical Association (AMA) on Tuesday urged the public and private sectors to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations, saying the move is key to getting control of the pandemic.

The call comes one day after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) fully approved the Pfizer vaccine, a step that is expected to lead more companies to pull the trigger on mandating vaccination for their employees.

The AMA, the country’s leading doctors group, is seeking to speed that process along.

The AMA argued that other steps to simply incentivize vaccination, rather than mandates, have not resulted in the high vaccination rates needed to tame the highly transmissible delta variant.

​​The statement joins calls from President Biden, who spoke after the FDA’s approval on Monday and called for employers to mandate vaccines for their workers as well.