Florida parents say it didn’t turn out that way. many are trying to find places to vaccinate their children, and they blame DeSantis — noting that he was the only governor who refused to pre-order vaccines, and to stop the circuit health departments from distributing or administering vaccines. Waiting lists at pediatricians’ offices stretch for weeks. Doctors’ offices that have managed to get doses are fielding calls from parents hundreds of miles away. Families argue about road trips to neighboring states in hopes of finding shots for their children.
“We heard him [the vaccine] it was coming and we were super excited. We saw a chance for some normalcy,” said Tampa mom Ashley Comegys, whose 1-year-old and 4-year-old sons are on the vaccination waiting list at their pediatrician’s office, which is likely to last about three week.
But even this time is uncertain. After nearly a month, more retail stores across the state began offering the vaccine this week, but many parents who want their child’s doctor to administer the vaccine are waiting a long time.
“They told us that because the state didn’t pre-order, that put Florida at the end of the line, so we don’t know when it’s going to come in,” Comegys said. “The hypocrisy is infuriating. With DeSantis, it’s all “your choice to wear a mask, your choice to get a vaccine.” But now he’s making that choice for me and my children by making the vaccine so difficult to get.”
Florida was the only state that refused to pre-order vaccines. “It’s not something we think is appropriate, and so it’s not where we’re going to use our resources,” DeSantis said at a June 16 news conference.
The challenges are greatest for poor families, who have traditionally relied on district health clinics, now barred from administering the pediatric vaccine. This means that underserved children, especially in rural areas, are left with few opportunities. Small pediatricians’ offices, which typically order their vaccines through county health departments, are also affected.
Meanwhile, state officials have sought to limit debate about their decisions, leaving aside a prominent doctor who spoke out even as state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo says healthy children don’t need the vaccines — defying the advice of pediatricians and health experts. infectious diseases.
Lisa Gwynn, president of the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, was removed from the Healthy Kids board of directors after criticizing the failure to pre-order vaccines or provide them to families through local health offices.
“For them, it’s not about science, it’s about politics,” Gwynn said. “But when the state decided not to pre-order — and then not distribute these vaccines to local health departments — that’s when it became a health equity issue. That was real. That was cutting off the supply for those kids.”
About 33,000 children in the state receive their health care from state county health departments, Ladapo said in a statement to the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis. State and county health personnel cannot administer the pediatric vaccine under state policy, but they can tell parents where to find them, Florida Department of Health spokesman Jeremy T. Redfern said.
“There is not a huge demand and I want to make sure you are not describing a narrative where parents are lining up to vaccinate their children,” Redfern said in an email. “That is factually untrue.”
West Palm Beach pediatrician Tommy Schechtman said his practice placed an order for the pediatric vaccine through its supplier shortly after the injections got the green light on June 18. He said the doses arrived within a week, and he has fielded phone requests from across the state in Tampa and Lakeland, and as far away as Jacksonville, 285 miles to the north — including from his granddaughter.
“We had parents lined up for appointments as soon as we got it,” said Schechtman, a former president of state chapter of the pediatric society. “These are parents who have been waiting over two years for this.”
Nationwide, more than 549,000 children younger than age 5, or 2.8 percent of the population, got their first coronavirus infection as of July 13, according to federal data. The rate was less than half that in Florida, where 14,421 children, or 1.3 percent in that age group, received a first shot. Sixteen states vaccinated a smaller percentage of children than Florida — with Mississippi and Alabama at the bottom, giving their first cases to 0.3 percent and 0.5 percent of young children, respectively.
DeSantis wasn’t always so dismissive of coronavirus vaccines. When the first adult photos first became available in late 2020, he led a successful effort to get them to the state’s aging population. But last September, he appointed a new surgeon general, Ladapo, who has downplayed the effectiveness of coronavirus vaccines in general and recommended against vaccinating healthy children younger than 18.
Then, in November, as some businesses and governments, including the Biden administration, sought to mandate vaccines, DeSantis signed a law banning vaccine or mask mandates from any public or private entity in the state.
DeSantis, who is seen as a possible 2024 presidential candidate, has won nationwide support among Republicans for his “liberty first agenda” in handling the pandemic, as well as for his barbed criticism of President Biden and adviser its chief medical officer, Anthony S. Fauci.
Recently, DeSantis has picked up a talking point popular with anti-vaccine groups, arguing that close ties between the government and pharmaceutical companies explain the push to vaccinate people against the coronavirus.
“The criticism of the FDA is that they are essentially a branch of Big Pharma,” DeSantis said on July 8. “So they’re acting in ways with baby vaccines, baby shots, that’s something that would obviously cause more of those to be sold.”
Jay Wolfson, an associate dean at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine who has advised several governors, said DeSantis’ policy on the coronavirus vaccine “hasn’t been as clear and as helpful as it could be,” but noted that many consider the coronavirus endemic now.
“That makes it a lot more like the flu,” Wolfson said. “For the most part, the state’s policy was not only economically favorable, but also favorable to health.”
But a pediatrician who has advised Florida’s health department said the state’s messaging about coronavirus vaccines runs counter to public health standards.
“What we need to do is try to get everyone vaccinated,” said the doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from state officials. “It feels like the Department of Health is run by a 26-year-old who watches Fox News all day and then issues health regulations on Twitter.”
Organizations that help serve disadvantaged children say conflicting messages from state and national leaders have confused parents and led to low demand for pediatric shots. Many of their parents rely on county health departments for outreach, but because of the vaccine ban, they’re not hearing about it, said Louisa McQueeney, program director for Florida Voices for Health.
This confusion is widespread.
“With all this misinformation and the state’s decision not to distribute it to local health departments, there are some families who feel it’s actually against the law to get their children vaccinated,” said Gwynn, the society’s state president. pediatric. who also runs a mobile health clinic in Miami-Dade County. “I had to have a meeting with my nurses to ease their fears that they would be doing something illegal if they gave vaccines to young children.
Even parents who follow this issue closely say that the state’s reluctance to facilitate the distribution of vaccines has caused them problems.
“It’s just been a waiting game and trying to track down rumors about who has it and how we can get a date,” said Stephanie Novenario, a Jacksonville mother whose two children are both younger than 5. years old. “We should have a choice whether to vaccinate the child, but the choices are very few.”
Dan Keating contributed to this report.
