Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said the state would recommend against vaccinating healthy children for Covid-19, a position that contradicts guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Ladapo, who heads the Florida Department of Health, said the recommendation would be the first of its kind in the nation. The CDC recommends that everyone age 5 and older get vaccinated against Covid-19. U.S. regulators have granted emergency authorization to a vaccine for children age 5 to 11 made by Pfizer Inc. and partner BioNTech SE.
"We’re kind of scraping at the bottom of the barrel, particularly with healthy kids, in terms of actually being able to quantify with any accuracy and any confidence the even potential of benefit,” Ladapo said Monday during a 90-minute panel discussion hosted by Governor Ron DeSantis.
Several speakers said a large percentage of schoolchildren have already been infected with Covid-19 and that natural immunity negates the need for vaccinating kids.
DeSantis, a Republican widely floated as a potential presidential contender even as he campaigns to be re-elected as governor this year, has long been critical of the federal government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Last week he used a viral video of him chiding students for wearing masks to solicit campaign contributions.
He hosted the panel discussion with a group of physicians, saying it was aimed at "ending Covid theater once and for all.”
A DeSantis spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for information on when the new Florida policy would be announced.
Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, a Democrat seeking her party’s nomination for governor this year, took to Twitter after the panel and said "Ron DeSantis is not a medical doctor.” The announcement was also criticized by Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.
"This is dangerous medical disinformation that seems to be designed for political gain,” Levine Cava, a Democrat, wrote.
About 22% of the state’s children age 5 to 11 have been vaccinated against Covid-19, according to data from the Florida Department of Health.
That compares with 74% of the general population over 5 years old.
There are approximately 28 million children between the ages of 5 and 11 in the U.S., according to the CDC, and nearly 2 million cases have been confirmed within that age group during the pandemic.
