host: lawrence gostin joins us now. he is the author of the new book "global health security: a blueprint for the future." i want to start where we ended the last conversation on the issue of vaccine mandates. do you believe vaccine mandates in the workplace are legal and appropriate at this point the pandemic? guest: they are legal, ethical, and essential for getting us back to normal. we have had a history of requiring vaccinations from the beginning of our republic. george washington required troops to get a smallpox inoculation. the supreme court has twice upheld compulsory vaccination. it boosts and maintains high unitization -- immunization coverage, which protects us all. host: what are your thoughts on sincerely held religious belief as a reason to not get the vaccine? guest: there are certainly some people who have sincere religious beliefs, but many people who try to get exemptions for religious beliefs really do not have genuine ones. i say that from experience and from knowing what goes on around the country

host: lawrence gostin joins us now.hor of the new book "global health security: a blueprint for the future." i want to start where we ended the last conversation on the issue of vaccine mandates. do you believe vaccine mandates in the workplace are legal and appropriate at this point the pandemic? guest: they are legal, ethical, and essential for getting us back to normal. we have had a history of requiring vaccinations from the beginning of our republic. george washington required troops to get a smallpox inoculation. the supreme court has twice upheld compulsory vaccination. it boosts and maintains high unitization -- immunization coverage, which protects us all. host: what are your thoughts on sincerely held religious belief as a reason to not get the vaccine? guest: there are certainly some people who have sincere religious beliefs, but many people who try to get exemptions for religious beliefs really do not have genuine ones. i say that from experience and from knowing what goes on around the country. many people

lawrence gostin, georgetown university professor of medicine, joining us.r, do you think the response from governments is about right, or too much, or too little? lawrence: it is really almost nondescript. governments are kind of slopping all over the place. but what they really should be doing is vaccinating their own populations, including boosters, and they should be really ramping up vaccination of the world. that is really the only way we can prepare for this. if it is as infectious as we worry it might be, most people are going to get it, and when you get it, we want you to be vaccinated. if you are, i don't we are going to have a big problem. if not, we could have huge hospitalization surges. alix: you think mandates are good thing? to pivot off what guy said, new york city mandating that childcare workers vaccinated by september 20. i just see a scenario where you all of a sudden lose childcare workers. lawrence: i heard you off air say, what is going to happen if we end up with childcare mandates? i actually do support them because if you send your

host: lawrence gostin joins us now. he is the author of the new book "global health security: a blueprint for the future." i want to start where we ended the last conversation on the issue of vaccine mandates. do you believe vaccine mandates in the workplace are legal and appropriate at this point the pandemic? guest: they are legal, ethical, and essential for getting us back to normal.