Florida Governor Ron DeSantis didn’t mince words in his message to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday after its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted unanimously for children as young as 6 months old to receive Covid shots.
“There’s been a lot of questions out to our office about the CDC… potentially adding Covid vaccine to the childhood immunization schedule,” DeSantis said. “And I know a lot of parents are concerned about that because if that’s on the immunization schedule, the fear is that schools could potentially mandate your child to get a Covid shot, even if that’s not something that you want to do.”
“So I just want to let everyone be clear. You know, as long as I’m around and as long as I’m kicking and screaming there will be no Covid shot mandates for your kids. That is your decision,” he said.
“That is your decision to make as a parent,” he went on. “These are are new shots. I get a kick at it when people kind of compare it to MMR and stuff. Things that have been around for decades and decades. So parents, by and large, most parents in Florida have opted against doing these booster shots for their — particularly for the young kids. The Surgeon General of Florida does not recommend this for young kids, for kids under, under 18. And basically as reason for that, there’s not really been a proven benefit for that. I mean, we can get into some of the potential side effects. You don’t even really need to do that. Not been a proven benefit.”
“But it’s a free state,” the governor said. “Parents can make the other decision, if that’s what they want. The important thing is that school districts are not mandating this.”
The CDC objects to the characterization of the Covid vaccination guidance as a ‘mandate’ for kids to get the mRNA shots. However, states and school districts around the country will simply adopt the CDC guidance as a rationale to mandate children receive the jabs to go to public schools or to play organized sports.
The Surgeon General of Florida, Joseph A. Ladapo, recently made it clear that the childhood Covid shot mandates were Dead on Arrival (DOA) in Florida.
“Regardless of what @CDCgov votes tomorrow on whether COVID-19 vax are added to routine child immunizations – nothing changes in FL,” Dr. Ladapo tweeted. “Thanks to @GovRonDeSantis, COVID mandates are NOT allowed in FL, NOT pushed into schools, & I continue to recommend against them for healthy kids.”
Dr. Ladapo had recently issued guidance on Covid-19 vaccines that recommends against them for adults between the ages of 18 and 40.
“The Florida Department of Health (Department) conducted an analysis through a self-controlled case series, which is a technique originally developed to evaluate vaccine safety,” Ladapo announced in an early October press release.
“This analysis found that there is an 84% increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death among males 18-39 years old within 28 days following mRNA vaccination,” the announcement stated. “With a high level of global immunity to COVID-19, the benefit of vaccination is likely outweighed by this abnormally high risk of cardiac-related death among men in this age group. Non-mRNA vaccines were not found to have these increased risks.”
The State Surgeon General thus recommends against males aged 18 to 39 from receiving the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.
“Those with preexisting cardiac conditions, such as myocarditis and pericarditis, should take particular caution when making this decision,” Ladapo advised.
“Studying the safety and efficacy of any medications, including vaccines, is an important component of public health,” said Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo. “Far less attention has been paid to safety and the concerns of many individuals have been dismissed – these are important findings that should be communicated to Floridians.”
It will be interesting to see how many red state governors follow DeSantis’s lead in the weeks and months ahead. Millions of parents of school-age children will not tolerate being forced to inject their kids with Covid shots as young as 6 months just to participate in American society. Citizens do not live in a ‘free state’ unless their governors follow Florida’s lead.