By: Michael Chang

On Friday, June 17, 2022, after immense pressure from the United States government and medical professionals, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida and his administration finally permitted Floridian doctors to order COVID-19 vaccines for children under five years old.

This decision was made after a congressional subcommittee sent Mr. DeSantis a letter persuading him to permit the vaccination of the youth. Unlike Florida, the rest of the United States of America allowed health care providers to preorder the vaccines intended for young children before the national preorder deadline on June 14.

According to the federal coronavirus response coordinator, Dr. Ashish K. Jha, “The state of Florida intentionally missed multiple deadlines to order vaccines to protect its youngest kids.” In addition, Governor Ron DeSantis’s reasoning for the delay in giving permission to doctors was that young children rarely develop serious symptoms from COVID-19.

Thematic of past decisions, Mr. DeSantis’s delay in enabling doctors to order coronavirus vaccines for children under five was another instance of his administration acting against the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Previously, in March 2022, Florida advised against the CDC’s recommendation of vaccinating healthy children.

Regarding Florida’s actions surrounding these vaccines for young children under the age of five, Patricia Mazzei from the New York Times explains, “Mr. DeSantis’s administration insisted that it had not budged from its original position and only allowed orders once the Food and Drug Administration authorized the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines for very young children on Friday morning.” Not only did a congressional subcommittee need to send Mr. DeSantis a persuasive letter, but the Food and Drug Administration also needed to officially authorize the vaccines before Florida granted vaccine ordering permission to its doctors.

After Governor DeSantis’s administration granted this permission to Floridian doctors on Friday, the physicians and the young children of Florida now have access to coronavirus vaccines. More importantly, during this global pandemic, doctors across the United States of America can now offer vaccinations to their patients.

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/17/us/florida-pediatric-covid-vaccine-children-desantis.html