Florida state officials will recommend that healthy children not get vaccinated.
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said that the official recommendation is coming soon.
“The Florida Department of Health is going to be the first state to officially recommend against the COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children,” Ladapo said.
That drew an outcry from the White House on Monday. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said it was “absolutely not” good policy.
She said unvaccinated teenagers are three times as likely to be hospitalized if they get COVID than vaccinated teenagers, “so it’s deeply disturbing that there are politicians peddling conspiracy theories out there and casting doubt on vaccinations when it is our best tool against the virus and the best tool to prevent even teenagers from being hospitalized.”
Medical experts have said vaccines are a safe way for children to prevent contracting the potentially fatal disease. But at the roughly two-year anniversary of COVID-19 mandates and shutdowns, Florida’s Republican governor led a panel of medical experts Monday, including Ladapo, for a “reflection on how public health authorities, bureaucrats, the medical establishment, the media have performed.”
The event was streamed on Facebook and the online site Rumble, which is growing in popularity with right-wing personalities; Former President Donald Trump officially joined Rumble last year in preparation for recording an Ohio campaign rally.
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Monday’s event was dubbed “The Curtain Close on COVID Theater,” which was the same wording that made national news when DeSantis publicly berated children for wearing masks. At a televised event last week, DeSantis told high school students lined up behind him to take off their masks, saying it was “COVID theater” and “ridiculous” in a county where the federal government still recommends face coverings.
“Please take them off. Honestly, it’s not doing anything. We’ve gotta stop with this COVID theater,” he told them.
The governor’s experts on Monday backed up what he had been claiming throughout the pandemic, which included: “Unethical behavior on the other side,” lockdowns were inefficient and devastating to the working class, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention played politics. His medical experts also alleged there was a “major campaign of suppression” to alternative drugs and the policies in place were “tailor made to harm children.”
Ladapo’s comments were preceded by multiple doctors, including Dr. Robert Malone, who is a frequent guest of Tucker Carlson’s on Fox News, who said the CDC was “acting as a political arm.”
Dr. Joseph B. Fraiman, an emergency medicine physician in New Orleans, also claimed that “not a single healthy child” has died from COVID. He said the odds of a healthy child dying is “close to zero if not actually zero.”
“Dr. Fraiman, you provided the introduction to our announcement,” Ladapo said, saying the state plans to recommend children not get the vaccine.
Fraiman made national news with previous comments suggesting that unvaccinated people are more educated on the vaccine than those who have received the shot.
DeSantis did not elaborate on the specific announcement other than to say the discussion shows the public’s “lack of trust in the medical establishment” and “whether a healthy 7-year-old kid should get the COVID vaccine.”
Medical experts say about 1,000 kids have died of COVID-19, including nearly 100 children ages 5-11 years. Children with underlying conditions such as obesity, diabetes and asthma are at the highest risk for severe disease, but about one-quarter of COVID-19 deaths among children were in previously healthy children.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC recommend the vaccines. The CDC writes on its website that “everyone ages 5 years and older should get a COVID-19 vaccination as soon as possible.”
The DeSantis roundtable coincided with a release of data from Johns Hopkins University that the COVID-19 death toll globally surpassed 6 million on Monday. The United States has reported more COVID-19 deaths than any other country, and medical experts say the true death toll is even higher.
The announcement on Monday was Florida’s latest break from White House coronavirus policy, as U.S. health officials and approved of and encourage the use of a COVID-19 vaccine in children as young as 5. Vaccines have not been authorized for children under 5.
DeSantis, who is running for reelection and is considered a potential 2024 presidential candidate, has risen to prominence in the GOP through his resistance to vaccine mandates and other public health guidance pushed by the federal government.
Late last month, Ladapo and DeSantis announced new policy recommendations that discouraged mask-wearing and directed physicians to exercise their own judgment when treating virus patients, including the use of emerging treatments and off-label medications.
The Florida state Senate confirmed Ladapo as surgeon general this year despite criticism that his virus health policy is too aligned with the politics of DeSantis.
Information from the Associated Press was used to supplement this report.
Lisa J. Huriash can be reached at [email protected] or 954-572-2008 or Twitter @LisaHuriash
