Gottlieb: Incorporating COVID-19 shot into childhood vaccination schedule is ‘inevitable’

Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb on Sunday predicted that the COVID-19 vaccine would eventually be among other inoculations given to children.  

“I think that it’s inevitable that the COVID vaccine is gonna be incorporated into the childhood immunization schedule,” Gottlieb said on CBS’s “Face The Nation.”

“You’re going to see other states and local districts moving forward with their own mandates,” Gottlieb added, noting that he thinks decisions surrounding mandates should be made at the local level. 

Gottlieb also warned that the country will have to grapple with the issue of politicizing vaccines amid pushback on mandates.

“These are not just individual choices. These are collective decisions,” Gottlieb added. “We’ve always looked at vaccination as a collective decision. That’s why we have a childhood immunization schedule because your behavior with respect to your choice around vaccination affects your community.” 

Gottlieb noted that he thought decisions from “as local a level as possible” could make vaccine-related decisions less political. 

“I worry that going forward we’re going to see vaccine rates decline as this becomes more of a political football,” he added. 

“You’re going to see other states and local districts moving forward with their own mandates,” @ScottGottliebMD tells @margbrennan of mandates for children in school, adding it’s “inevitable” a COVID vaccine will be incorporated to the childhood immunization schedule. pic.twitter.com/7iFOwZlA14

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) October 3, 2021

Last week in an interview on CNN, Gottlieb said that this could be COVID-19’s “last major surge” in the U.S., adding that the current wave was not over yet. 

“I don’t think this has run its course,” he said on CNN. “This has been a highly regionalized epidemic from the very beginning … but I think on the back end of this delta surge of infection around the country, after we get through this, this may be the last major wave of infection.”