DeathSantis Piper

Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis spoke against COVID-19 vaccines for young children on June 16, 2022, saying that Florida won’t provide state programs to administer vaccines for toddlers or infants. “I would say we are affirmatively against the COVID vaccine for young kids,” he said during a press conference. “These are the people who have zero risk of getting anything.” PUBLIX Supermarkets have stepped in and refuse to vaccinate children. Of course PUBLIX also helped fund the insurrection.

The Governor is of course misguided and ignoring the science. In January 2022, there were 1,150,000 cases of COVID in children in Florida. For the week ending June 23rd, nearly 68,000 child COVID-19 cases were reported. Children represented 18.8% of total accumulated cases.

Florida is the only state in the nation that didn’t order new doses of vaccines for children before the FDA decision on June 15, 2022 to approve the Pfizer and Moderna shots for kids under age 5. This week’s approval opened fast-track distribution, and kids could begin receiving shots as soon as June 21, 2022, Politico reported.

The Florida Department of Health, which is overseen by the DeatSantis office, is headed by Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, who has been an outspoken critic of COVID-19 vaccines. He previously said he opposed vaccine use in young children and has questioned the safety and efficacy of the coronavirus vaccines, Politico reported.

Right now Florida is a COVID virus hot spot. It is the bloody skin tag of America. DeathSantis’ press secretary Christina Pushaw is staunchly anti vax and they believe that by removing a parents right to choose if their child is vaccinated, the governor could be on the road to a possible presidential bid. A few dead children is accessible collateral damage in a bid for political power.

10,144 cases of COVID-19 per day were reported in Florida in the last week.  Deaths have increased by 60 percent. Since the beginning of the pandemic, at least 1 in 3 Florida residents have been infected, for a total of 6,447,100 reported cases. Anecdotally more people I know are being infected and re-infected than at any other time during the pandemic. At least 1 in 284 residents have died from the coronavirus, a total of 75,671 deaths.

Florida ranks 46th in the nation for the highest number of children (aged 0-4 years) who died due to COVID-19 with 11 children dead. The only states with a higher death toll, are Texas with 19 children dead and California with 14 children dead. COVID-19 cases continue to rise in the U.S as DeathSantis forces death on children.

Warp Speed Vaccine Distribution Plan

Operation Warp Speed immediately hit a snag just days into Pfizer distributing doses of the COVID-19 vaccine across the country. It is no surprise that the Trump administration would bungle the distribution pipeline.

Governors across the country were frustrated that the number of doses they expected was cut by nearly half in some cases, and they were left in the dark as to why for several days until a federal official took responsibility on Saturday December 19, 2020.

For several days governors tried to get answers about the distributions shortfalls. Lack of clarity from the federal government represented a huge headache for states as they scrambled to adjust their vaccination programs.  Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said Tuesday December 15, 2020 that Florida could receive less than the 452,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine that the state was expecting because of a “production issue” on the part of a vaccine manufacturer. DeSantis said that two shipments of the vaccine slated to be sent to Florida in the coming weeks are “on hold right now.”  Though the Governor pointed a finger of blame at Pfizer, the blame seems to rest on the Federal Government. Pfizer immediately sent out a statement contradicting the Governor. “This week, we successfully shipped all 2.9 million doses that we were asked to ship by the U.S. Government to the locations specified by them,” Pfizer said in an official statement. “We have millions more doses sitting in our warehouse but, as of now, we have not received any shipment instructions for additional doses.” Both sides have been accused of using the media to negotiate, and fingers have been pointed, in every direction.

Operation Warp Speed chief operating officer, Army General Gustave Perna, said that he overestimated the number of vaccine doses that will be available to states next week. Originally, the number was 7.3 million, but Perna now says only 4.3 million doses will be available. “It was a planning error, and I am responsible,” Army General Gustave Perna said, according to Politico. “We’re learning from it. We’re trying to get better.” Perna said the numbers differ because he failed to account for the time required to get all of the vaccine doses approved by the FDA to be distributed.

Pfizer’s vaccine requires the patient to be injected with two doses taken 21 days apart. Putting aside so many doses for second shots adds to the logistical nightmare of distribution. Florida was supposed to submit a detailed plan to the federal government about its strategy by Dec. 4, 2020 but that plan has not been made public despite numerous requests from news organizations. For now the Trump administration has basically decided to pass daunting task of distributing vaccines to individual states, a strategy it used to address the pandemic this spring that led to disastrous results. Distribution will likely continue to be a confused mess until the Joe Biden administration can begin starting January 20, 2021. Biden’s team appears to be regularly meeting with pharmaceutical executives without the Trump administration.