A.G. Gancarski
Florida’s Governor thinks people might be more likely to want vaccinations if government doesn’t order them to get the jabs.
“The Surgeon General believes, and I believe, that if you actually didn’t say, ‘You’ve got to take this, otherwise, you’re going to be punished’, I think you’d actually have more uptake on some of those. I think there are some people, they’re being told they have to do it, so they’re opting for the exemption, but if they were told, ‘hey, here’s why you would want to do it there’, I actually think you’d see more,” Ron DeSantis said Monday at G Five Feed & Outdoor in Plant City.
The Governor’s comments in defense of his and state Surgeon General Joe Ladapo’s position week come as Ladapo found himself going against President Donald Trump’s advocacy for shots during a cable news show Sunday.
Ladapo claimed ending vaccine mandates was a matter of “the right and wrong thing to do.”
DeSantis went on to argue it’s immaterial.
“I don’t think the outcome would be much different at all,” he said, before offering a vivid illustration of a shot he believes is unnecessary.
“If what, your six-year old didn’t take a hepatitis B shot? You know, that’s a sexually transmitted disease. Like sitting in a classroom in kindergarten, I think the chance of contracting Hep B is probably pretty low,” DeSantis opined.
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) can be passed from mother to child in utero. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends infant and young child vaccinations in case the virus was unknowingly passed to the child. Adolescents, adults and older people can also get the vaccination.
DeSantis says removing mandates won’t restrict access to shots, suggesting Ladapo’s position was misinterpreted.
“He never said anything. He never said that there wouldn’t be any availability. Obviously, that’s not his position, but I think his position is that if you provide information and persuasion, that’s better than coercion.”
While DeSantis acknowledges the Legislature would have the final call on “some of the stuff in statute” with “additional legislation,” he went out of his way to make the point that Ladapo’s edict was rooted in personal conviction.
“But when he told me, he’s like, look, I I want to say that I don’t believe in any of these. Do you mind? I was like, you know, say what you believe, man. You know, go ahead and do it.”
And ultimately, DeSantis believes the power of persuasion over the prospect of coercion will lead to better uptake.
“Apart from the overall mandates, which I think, as people learn more about it, will understand that what the Surgeon General was saying was pretty consistent with what many countries are doing. And then if you look in practice with Florida, having our exemptions the way we do, and a lot of parents opting for that, that I think likely you would see very, very similar outcomes, even in the absence of the current regime. And I actually think you’d see higher in some respects, because I think people would say, you know what, you’re trusting me. Yeah, I’m going to listen.”
