A top health official in Florida was placed on leave after he allegedly urged employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Raul Pino, the director for the Florida Department of Health in Orange County, was sidelined Tuesday after an email signed by him was sent to employees Jan. 4 saying it would be “irresponsible” not to get inoculated, according to a report by WFTV.
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“As the decision to get vaccinated is a personal medical choice that should be made free from coercion and mandates from employers, the employee in question (Pino) has been placed on administrative leave, and the Florida Department of Health is conducting an inquiry to determine if any laws were broken in this case,” Jeremy Redfern, press secretary for the Florida Department of Health, said in a statement.
“The department is committed to upholding all laws, including the ban on vaccine mandates for government employees, and will take appropriate action once additional information is known,” the statement continued.
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Christina Pushaw, the press secretary for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, provided News 6 with a copy of the email bearing Pino’s signature.
“I am sorry but in the absence of reasonable and real reasons it is irresponsible not to be vaccinated,” Pino said in the email. “We have been at this for two years.”
“We were the first to give vaccines to the masses, we have done more than 300,000 (OC DOH) and we are not even at 50%, pathetic,” Pino said.
?on FL’s latest COVID controversy
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More to the story of the Health Dept doc put on leave after encouraging employees via email to get vaccinatedUnreported: he may have accessed potentially confidential worker health info, according to the email shown here for the 1st time pic.twitter.com/jH0yed4bDF
— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) January 19, 2022
Pino’s email came in response to only 77 employees who had received their COVID-19 booster shoots out of a total of 568 employees, according to the news outlet. Of the total employees, only 219 have received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.
“I have a hard time understanding how we can be in public health and not practice it,” Pino said.
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To date, Florida has reported 5,153,539 total coronavirus-related cases, according to the New York Times coronavirus map and case count tracker, with 63,455 coronavirus-related deaths.
Roughly 64% of the population is considered to be fully vaccinated, while 76% of the population has received one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, according to the data.
DeSantis has adamantly spoken out against vaccine mandates and signed in November the state’s anti-mandate legislation in the city of Brandon, a name that has come to symbolize opposition to the president, that effectively bans businesses from enacting a vaccine mandate without providing exemptions.
He also vowed to sue the Biden administration over its vaccine mandate requiring large businesses with 100 or more employees to be vaccinated. That vaccine-or-test mandate was blocked by the Supreme Court last week.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the Florida Health Department for a comment but did not receive a response.
