US Republicans block govt vaccine mandates amid increasing COVID-19 cases: US News & World Report

WASHINGTON - US Republicans tried to block President Joe Biden's vaccine mandates under the pretext of natural immunity amid rising COVID-19 cases nationwide, according to the website of US News and World Report.

Republicans were quoted by a recent report as saying that people who have recovered from the virus have enough immunity and antibodies, therefore they do not need COVID-19 vaccines.

The state of Florida wrote natural immunity into state law last week, forcing private businesses to let workers opt out of COVID-19 mandates if they can prove immunity through prior infection, the report said.

Meanwhile, the Republican lawmakers elsewhere are pushing similar measures to sidestep vaccine mandates, it said.

However, scientists suggested that COVID-19 survivors who ignored advice to get vaccinated were more than twice as likely to get infected again, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

As of Monday, the United States reported a total of 47,863,314 COVID-19 cases, while the national tally of deaths topped 770,800, figures from the Johns Hopkins University showed.

This puts the pandemic-long total at more than twice the 385,343 COVID-19 deaths recorded last year, according to the most recent death certificate data from the CDC.