Ron DeSantis Went from Yelling at Children to Endangering Them
Last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis shocked Florida and the country when he berated high school students until they took off their masks.
This week, he managed to sink even lower.
Governor DeSantis and his newly-confirmed surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, appeared at a panel with discredited conspiracy theorists early this week. There, Dr. Ladapo announced Florida’s new guidance on vaccines for children which was simply: don’t vaccinate them.
The new recommendation goes against public health guidance, advice from pediatricians, and basic common sense. Children face unique health risks from COVID-19, and vaccinations are still the best way to combat serious illness, hospitalization, and death. The benefits of vaccinating children far outweigh any potential and rare risks associated with the vaccination.
A recent editorial from the Tampa Bay Times outlines the financial costs of not vaccinating COVID-19 in one Florida school district. The deficit in the school district’s self insured policy for 2021 was more than $11 million. 97% of the COVID-19 related claims came from staffers who said they weren’t vaccinated. This financial toll doesn’t include the physical and emotional trauma from contracting and, hopefully, recovering from COVID-19.
Governor DeSantis places children in real jeopardy thanks to his push against vaccinations and his adherence to conspiracy theories. He’s throwing the doctors who have fought to overcome vaccine hesitancy in their communities under the bus, undoing their hard work and setting back the effort to make sure children are protected and safe. And he’s doing all this because he believes that it will score him political points.
Elsewhere in Republican efforts to prolong the pandemic…
Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson and Texas Senator Ted Cruz held a largely unintelligible roundtable with the People’s Convoy, the truckers circling the Beltway to oppose restrictions which have mostly been lifted nationwide. Senator Cruz joined the truckers later in the week to recreate former President Trump’s classic big boy truck moment and drive around for a bit, as if he didn’t have anything better to do.
At least 26 state legislatures have introduced or passed legislation designed to make Ivermectin easier to prescribe, even though multiple studies have shown that it is not an effective treatment against COVID-19. These legislators should be more focused on overcoming vaccine hesitancy in order to make sure people are safe and protected against serious illness and death. Like Governor DeSantis, however, they would rather try to score partisan political points and prolong the pandemic.