After Biden announcement, Fauci predicts 'many, many' more vaccine mandates to compel enough Americans to get COVID-19 shots

• "Many, many" more local vaccine mandates are coming, Dr. Anthony Fauci predicted Sunday.
• About 75 million eligible Americans are unvaccinated, Fauci said.
• The comments came after the Biden administration's sweeping new vaccine rules.

"Many, many more mandates" will come on top of the Biden administrations' new vaccine restrictions, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday.

Fauci predicted that colleges, universities, and businesses are likely to start imposing vaccine mandates, he told CNN's Jen Christensen at a panel organized by NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists on Sunday.

"And I believe that's going to turn this around because I don't think people are going to want to not go to work, or not go to college, or not go to university," he said.

However, he said he did not expect more "centrally-derived mandates" to be on the way, like the policy from President Joe Biden last week.

Under his new policy, all federal workers must be vaccinated, and companies employing more than 100 people must either require vaccination or carry out regular tests.

COVID-19 vaccines effectively reduce the risk of severe disease, hospitalization, and death, even in the face of the Delta variant.

About 75 million eligible Americans have yet to receive the shots. Vaccinating the majority of these would "dramatically" cut down the number of infections, Fauci said.

"We're trying to persuade them - or mandate them if they're not persuaded - to get vaccinated," Fauci said Sunday.

President Joe Biden last week announced of a raft of sweeping vaccine mandates for private and public businesses, facing GOP backlash.

Although the number of people covered by the mandate is vast, the rules leave untouched workers for smaller companies as well as many people who aren't part of the workforce.

Fauci had previously been vocally supportive of vaccine mandates, including in schools and private businesses.

Speaking to CNN's Anderson Cooper on Friday, Fauci called Biden's latest mandates "somewhat moderate."