The governor the following month stood on a podium in Gainesville next to a city employee who falsely claimed that a coronavirus vaccine “changes your RNA,” and did not challenge his assertion. “I don’t even remember him saying that, so it’s not anything I’ve said,” Mr. DeSantis said the next day.
The governor’s dalliance with vaccine doubters may have begun in April, when Mr. DeSantis declined to get his Johnson & Johnson shot in public, joking that he did not need to show off his biceps. (He has since declined to say if he has received a recommended booster or intends to get one.)
In September, Mr. DeSantis picked as Florida’s new surgeon general Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo, an outspoken mask and vaccine skeptic who has not disclosed whether he has been vaccinated. The Florida Department of Health, under his guidance, would have significant authority over how the state enforces anti-mandate legislation.
On Thursday, Dr. Ladapo said that the vaccine “has not been shown to improve any child’s health.”
“Same things for the masks,” he added. “There’s no evidence that it actually helps improve the health of children.”
Dr. Ladapo declined to wear a mask last month when he went to meet with Senator Tina Polsky, a Boca Raton Democrat, even after she said she had a serious health condition and asked him to. She later publicly disclosed that she had recently undergone surgery for breast cancer.
On Wednesday, Ms. Polsky drew a line from the governor’s selection of Dr. Ladapo to Republican lawmakers’ tolerance of the anti-vaccination activists who filled legislative committee meetings this week.
“You can all say that you’re pro-vaccine and anti-mandate, but these actions are playing to this crowd,” she said on the Senate floor.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/17/us/florida-coronavirus-covid-19.html
Comments