Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Thursday pushed back against the Biden administration CDC’s push to require children to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to attend public school.
Speaking on the CDC’s decision to add the COVID jabs to the child immunization schedule, DeSantis vowed to prevent any requirements in Florida schools as long as he remains in charge.
“There’s been a lot of questions to our office about the CDC potentially adding the COVID vaccine to the child immunization schedule, 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 something that you don’t want to do,” DeSantis said.
“As long as I’m kicking and screaming, there will be no COVID shot mandates for your kids. That is your decision to make as a parent.”
As long as I am Governor, in Florida there will not be a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for children in our schools. pic.twitter.com/oDXAj3c4Oy
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) October 20, 2022
The popular Republican governor explained, “These are new shots. I get a kick out of it when people kind of compare it to MMR and stuff, things that have been around for decades and decades. So parents buy and large, most parents in Florida have opted against doing these booster shots, particularly for their young kids.”
DeSantis added that his state’s Surgeon General officially recommended against receiving mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, particularly for males aged 18 to 39 due to an increased risk (84%) of cardiac-related death.
“The Surgeon General of Florida does not recommend this for young kids under 18, and basically his reason for that is there has not really been a proven benefit for that, I mean, we can get into the potential side effects, you don’t even really need to do that — not been a proven benefit,” DeSantis continued.
“But, it’s a free state. Parents can make the other decision if that’s what they want. The important thing is that school districts are not mandating this choice,” he said.
The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted unanimously on Thursday to add the COVID-19 vaccine to the agency’s new recommended immunization schedules for children and adults in 2023.
The new schedule, approved by the committee with a 15-0 vote, recommends that children begin receiving the controversial COVID-19 vaccine injections when they are as young as 6 months old, prompting fears that states could require children to receive the shots in order to attend school in the near future.
This news and commentary by Andrew White originally appeared on Valiant News.
