<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1655414011704,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"00000168-ed87-defd-a17f-fdd754cd0002","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1655414011704,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"00000168-ed87-defd-a17f-fdd754cd0002","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_55414002", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1034158"} }); ","_id":"00000181-6e5d-dd13-a9fb-7e7f2c530000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedFlorida Gov. Ron DeSantis defended his state’s decision on Thursday to forgo preordering doses of pediatric COVID-19 vaccines, making Florida the only U.S. state to do so.
DeSantis strongly disapproves of giving the shots to children, who are less likely than older adults to experience severe COVID-19. He maintained that the shots have not completed enough rigorous testing to be proven safe and effective, adding that the state would not be launching any sort of vaccination campaign for getting shots in children’s arms.
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“I would say we are affirmatively against the COVID vaccine for young kids,” DeSantis said in Miami on Thursday. “These are the people who have zero risk of getting anything.”
Every state except Florida has submitted a pre-order for pediatric doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, which will ship out as soon as federal regulators give the green light. The Food and Drug Administration’s panel of vaccine experts voted unanimously on Wednesday to recommend their authorization for children under six, the last remaining age group in the United States that is ineligible for any of the three available COVID-19 vaccines.
“There’s not going to be any state programs that are going to be trying to, you know, get COVID jabs to infants and toddlers and newborns,” DeSantis said. “That’s not something that we think is appropriate, and so that’s not where we’re going to be utilizing our resources in that regard.”
But DeSantis said on Thursday the FDA panel’s decision was made to ease parents’ anxiety.
“To do an emergency-use authorization for a 6-month-old or a 1-year-old simply to placate anxiety, that’s not the standard when you’re doing this,” he said.
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The DeSantis administration hinted at its unwillingness to vaccinate children in March, when state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo advised against administering COVID-19 vaccines to healthy children. The state health department’s position ran counter to what health officials in the Biden administration, as well as many doctors and public health experts, have been telling parents since fall 2021, when the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was deemed safe for children as young as 5 years old.
