By: Max Liu

The Florida government finally agreed to order coronavirus vaccines for young children on Friday after facing an undeniable amount of pressure from medical professionals, who want to make sure that young children will be able to get shots at the doctor’s office.

In the past few years, Florida was the only state that did not request an order of vaccines for children from 6 months to 5 years old. This is because Florida officials think that they already have healthy children, and giving them vaccines will not help.

Although the Florida government has allowed this to happen, Gov. Ron DeSantis wants the Food and Drug Administration to authorize the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech before the young children can get the shots. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has already granted its endorsement on Saturday.

Lisa Gwynn, the president of the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said that she was in contact with the Florida government and had not been told that the Florida Department of Health would not allow preordering. She was also unaware that doctors would only be allowed to take shots for young children when FDA gives authorization.

Out of all the states, Florida is the only state that does not allow preordering. Therefore, Florida missed out on the first two rounds of vaccinations.

“The state of Florida intentionally missed multiple deadlines to order vaccines to protect its youngest kids,” Dr. Ashish K. Jha, coronavirus response coordinator, told reporters on Friday.

“At least 442 children under 5 have died due to Covid during the pandemic through the end of May, exceeding the number of deaths typically seen from flu or other severe respiratory illnesses” Peter Marks, the FDA’s top vaccine regulator, told an agency committee Wednesday.

Even though so many children have died due to covid, Florida officials still disagree with giving the vaccine to kids under five, stating that the younger kids would be better off without vaccines.

DNYuz reported that “on Thursday, DeSantis spoke against the vaccines for young children during a press conference, saying that Florida was “affirmatively against” the vaccine for younger kids.”