Will all vaccine mandates be eliminated in Florida?

NBC's Rory O'Neill on Florida's progress ending vaccine mandates

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mike Elliott, Columbus's Morning News. Let's jump over to the
Legacy Retirement Group dot Com phone line and say good
morning to Orlando, Florida's favorite son, Rory O'Neil, NBC News Radio.
I don't know why I said that, It just kind
of came out, Rory, good morning. How are you.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
I think Harry Potter is our favorite son down here.
But yeah, I get your.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
What's going on there in the state of Florida. They
have they ended or they're considering ending all vaccine mandates
there in the state.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, they're in the process of it. Some of the
vaccine mandates that are in effect can be waived by
the Florida Surgeon General. Others will require legislative action in
the new year. But yeah, they're on track to eliminate
all vaccine mandates. Look, some of it relates to the
fact that, let's say you worked as a drug distributor
or a manufacturer or a visiting nurse. If you go

(00:51):
to a hospital, you have to be vaccinated with XYZ
in order to enter that hospital. And those are the
kind of mandates they want to remove as in terms
of as it relates to your employment. But they also
want to remove the vaccine mandates for kids, you know,
getting their measles and months vaccine, their t DApp and
what had been considered standard vaccines. They say it should

(01:13):
be a choice, not a mandate.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Interesting. I mean, the MMR, the measles months, rubella has
been around for a very long time. And you know,
that's one thing I understand being skeptical of, you know,
the COVID, you know the mr NA vaccines, which are
fairly new. I understand that the old ones, I mean
things like even like the flu shot, you know, the

(01:35):
a polio MMR. Yeah, those ones, they kind of have
a bit of a head scratcher.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, And I'm not sure it'll be interesting to see
how the Florida public comes down on this, because now
you've got issues. Now school teachers are going to be
afraid that the kids won't be vaccinated. And then what's
the insurance component if it's not mandated, is it's still
covered by insurance? And then if it's not, if it's
suddenly you know, I need five hundred dollars worth of
vaccinations from my kid, Well guess who isn't paying the

(02:02):
five hundred bucks. So now you could potentially have disease
sweeping through the poorest communities, affecting them more than others.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
But if you want to get vaccinated, the argument there
would be, okay, go ahead, and you can get vaccinated,
get your kids vaccinated, and then you know they would
be immune to being in a classroom or wherever else
that maybe kids weren't vaccinated.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Right, But is it only the wealthy then can get
them if they're not covered by insurance, So that would
be one of the issues. And the other Look, these vaccines,
as we remember, these vaccines only work if about ninety
two percent of the population is vaccinated. So there have
always been exceptions. Florida has an exception. You could just
check a box and say I have religious objections, so
you can get your kid out of it. It's not

(02:45):
really a big deal. So it's a bit of a
performance that they're doing this. But they also you need
that ninety two percent coverage rate in order to make
sure we don't have a resurgence of measles.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Interesting, and what's RFK doing is he's testifying today? Correct?

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Fine, before the flow the US Senate today it's a
committee hearing in finance. Listen for Bill Cassidy he's the
senator from Louisiana, the Republican. It was his vote. He's
a doctor, by the way, it was his vote that
let the confirmation move forward. And Cassidy said, look, I
got guarantees from RFK Jr. He wouldn't be changing the
vaccine policies significantly. Obviously that's not exactly what we're seeing today,

(03:23):
so there could be some fireworks when Republican Senator Cassidy
questions our FK Junior.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
All right, great reporting this morning, as always, Rory, thank
you very much.