DeSantis is fervently against giving vaccinations to children, who are less likely than older adults to undergo severe COVID-19. He stressed that the shots have not met enough strict testing to be proven safe and effective, adding that the state would not be undertaking any sort of vaccination campaign for getting shots in children’s arms.
“I would say we are affirmatively against the COVID vaccine for young kids,” DeSantis said in Miami on Thursday. “These are the people who have zero risk of getting anything.”
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Every state except Florida has offered a preorder for pediatric doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, which will ship out as soon as federal regulators give the green light. The Food and Drug Administration’s panel of vaccine experts voted unanimously on Wednesday to recommend their authorization for children under six, the last remaining age group in the United States that is ineligible for any of the three available COVID-19 vaccines.
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"There's not going to be any state programs that are going to be trying to, you know, get COVID jabs to infants and toddlers and newborns," DeSantis said. "That's not something that we think is appropriate, and so that's not where we're going to be utilizing our resources in that regard." But DeSantis said on Thursday the FDA panel’s decision was made to ease parents’ anxiety.
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“To do an emergency-use authorization for a 6-month-old or a 1-year-old simply to placate anxiety, that’s not the standard when you’re doing this,” he said.
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The DeSantis administration indicated its reluctance to give the shot to children in March, when state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo advised against administering COVID-19 vaccines to healthy children. The state health department’s position ran counter to what health officials in the Biden administration, as well as many doctors and public health experts, have been telling parents since fall 2021, when the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was deemed safe for children as young as 5 years old.
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The FDA is expected to quickly authorize for emergency use the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for kids under 5 and the Moderna vaccines for kids under 6. Both options could be used in children as young as 6 months old.
The CDC’s panel of expert advisers will consider whether to recommend the shots’ administration during meetings on Friday and Saturday. Once CDC Director Rochelle Walensky signs off on a recommendation, children are expected to begin receiving shots by Tuesday. Children under 6 who take the Moderna vaccine will get two 25-microgram doses, four weeks apart. The Pfizer vaccine is two 3-microgram doses three weeks apart, followed by a third dose at least eight weeks later.
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