FL Suspends Health Department Official for Urging Staff to Vaccinate

Did you hear the one where the public health official in Florida was suspended for making the very logical suggestion urging staff that works with the public be vaccinated for Covid-19? No, it’s not a joke. From the Washington Post:

The Florida Department of Health on Tuesday placed a top official on administrative leave after he allegedly encouraged employees to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Raul Pino, director of the Florida Department of Health in Orange County, sent an email to employees earlier this month that was critical of the agency’s vaccination rate. Pino, a leading figure in the public response to the pandemic in the Orlando area, noted that only 77 of the 568 staffers had received booster shots and 219 employees had gotten two doses of coronavirus vaccines, according to WFTV, which first reported the story.

“I am sorry but in the absence of reasonable and real reasons it is irresponsible not to be vaccinated,” he wrote on Jan. 4. “We have been at this for two years, we were the first to give vaccines to the masses, we have done more than 300,000 and we are not even at 50 percent, pathetic,” he wrote, apparently referring to the 219 employees who have had two vaccine doses and not those who have also had boosters.

He added: “I have a hard time understanding how we can be in public health and not practice it.”

Weesam Khoury, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Health, confirmed to The Washington Post that Pino was placed on administrative leave. She did not offer details on what led to the decision or how long Pino would be on leave, but suggested that state officials are investigating whether the Orange County official violated state law. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed into law in the fall a measure that prohibits state government agencies from implementing vaccine mandates. [emphasis added]

“… state officials are investigating whether the Orange County official violated state law.” Mind-blowing. A health department official urging staff working with the public to be vaccinated may have broken state law.

Sounds like common sense to me but there is a segment of the population cheering this decision. That’s when I shake my head yet again and wonder if I’ve been living in a parallel universe since the pandemic arrived in 2020. Even now there are many in rural areas of the Commonwealth, that boasts a 70.2 percent vaccination rate, who are anti-vax and anti-mask. Our local hospital is again overwhelmed with this fifth wave of the pandemic.

Count me as one who would feel more comfortable knowing that those who are frontliners – firefighters, EMTs, police officers, health department, hospitals, medical offices, retirement home workers, home healthcare workers – are vaxxed.

Former CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden noted Friday that no one knows what the next twist will be in this global pandemic. Is Omicron the last Covid variant? Or is another variant already forming? If so, will it be “mild” or will it be worse? The simple fact is it’s impossible to know and, after losing almost one million Americans to Covid over the past two years, it is amazing that so many still resist.

More from the WaPost:

Pino, who has led the health agency in Florida’s fifth-most-populous county since 2019, left Cuba as a political refugee more than 25 years ago. He settled in New England and took on odd jobs, including picking blueberries in Connecticut, the Orlando Sentinel reported. Pino, who had graduated from medical school in Cuba, returned to working in health care, eventually graduating from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and being hired as an epidemiologist at the Connecticut Department of Public Health.

It made me wonder if perhaps Dr. Pino is incredulous that a country like his native Cuba, the small Caribbean island that has long-time difficulty stocking grocery shelves and is populated with vintage vehicles because of embargos in place since communism took over in 1959, has been able to fully vaccinate 86 percent of its population. Meanwhile, the U.S., with plentiful vaccine supplies, has only a 63.5 percent vaccination rate against a background of political resistance to the life-saving meds.

Irregardless, Dr. Pino is suspended from the health department and there is no word on how long his punishment for trying to do his job will last.