MIAMI — Pediatricians across Florida have begun ordering COVID-19 vaccines for their patients under 5 after Gov. Ron DeSantis changed course Friday and allowed doctors and hospitals in the state to get them from a federal program.
On Thursday, Florida doctors and hospitals could not preorder the vaccine for their infant and toddler patients because the state health department refused to order the vaccines from the federal government, the only state in the country that took this stance, the Herald reported Wednesday. The state’s top health official disagrees with the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to authorize the vaccine for the young children, the last group in the country to get the vaccines.
Dr. Lisa Gwynn, president of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said Friday she was “thrilled” with the state’s decision to let doctors order the vaccine from the federal program. The chapter has 3,000 members.
“We’re happy to hear that the state has agreed that this is important,” added Gwynn, a pediatrician with the University of Miami Health System.
On Friday, the DeSantis administration, after an outcry from doctors and hospitals in the state who were not able to preorder the pediatric vaccine for their patients, said healthcare providers in Florida, including pediatricians and children’s hospitals, could order the vaccines from a federal program for children under 5.
Also on Friday, the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization for the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccines for all children under age 5 — a group that numbers about 18 million in the United States. In Florida, there are approximately 1 million children under 5, according to 2021 Census estimates.
“The agency determined that the known and potential benefits of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines outweigh the known and potential risks in the pediatric populations authorized for use for each vaccine,” the FDA said in a statement.
Florida’s Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo has gone against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics, which have both recommended giving the vaccines to healthy children. Ladapo has contended there is “insufficient data to inform benefits and risk in children.”
As such, the Florida Department of Health will not be involved in ordering the vaccines for infants and preschoolers or distributing them. Throughout the pandemic, the state health department has ordered vaccines from the federal government and set up distribution channels so Florida hospitals and doctors could access those vaccines from the state.
Since the pandemic began in March 2020, there have been 391,305 COVID-19 cases confirmed in Florida in the 5-11 age group, with a 25.7% positivity rate for this group, according to the June 10-16 weekly COVID report issued by the Florida Department of Health. For all ages, the state’s positivity rate since the pandemic has been 27.2%, according to the state report.
Impact on Black and brown children
Some doctors question the wisdom of Florida not being involved in distribution for this vaccine, saying the state’s hands-off approach can impact Florida’s most vulnerable children. Throughout the pandemic, Black communities in Florida have had the lowest vaccine rates in the state, in part due to barriers of access and logistical hurdles.
As of the state’s June 2 weekly COVID report, only 43% of Black residents have been vaccinated in Florida since the pandemic began in March 2020, compared with 59& of white residents.
“Any progress is welcome; however, there are a number of real concerns with the governor’s current revised position,” Dr. Reed Tuckson, co-founder of the Black Coalition Against COVID, said Friday in an interview with the Herald.
“While he [DeSantis] is clear that he is saying that there is not a ‘ban’ on acquiring these vaccines, what he is doing is making it as difficult as possible for people in the system to get access to it — particularly those who are dependent upon the public health infrastructure, poor and minority communities especially.
“This is a fundamental government requirement and he has somehow convoluted a political posture that seems to accept public health abrogating its responsibility to protect the health of the citizens of his state. That is a serious problem.”
The state has contended it hasn’t blocked health care providers from ordering the vaccine; it just doesn’t want to facilitate the rollout of the vaccine because state health officials are not recommending the vaccine to be administered to healthy children.
Pediatricians, hospitals begin to request vaccines
Gwynn, the president of the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said some pediatricians on Friday were able to put in preorder requests for the shots.
“We just want to thank everyone that spoke out and advocated for children,” she added. “We all banded together and we’re glad to see the outcome.”
At Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood, part of Memorial Healthcare System, doctors were able to put in a request for the vaccines, said Dr. Ronald Ford, chief medical officer at the children’s hospital.
“It’s really about meeting the needs of the community,” said Ford.
For families who received previous coronavirus vaccines through Memorial, the process to get a vaccine for their little ones will be familiar. Once Memorial receives the vaccines, it will begin scheduling appointments online through its MyChart system.
Jackson Health System, Miami-Dade’s largest public health network, told the Herald Friday it is in the process of working out a plan for the newest age group to get the vaccine.
Vaccines shipped to Florida will be delayed
The vaccines will not be arriving early next week, as they will for other states that preordered the vaccines by the federal government’s Tuesday deadline. The Biden administration set up the preorders so that when the FDA granted the emergency use, which it did on Friday, the federal government could quickly roll out the vaccines to the states. No doses were delivered before the FDA authorized them.
It could take up to two weeks for the vaccines to arrive in Florida based on orders placed Friday, federal officials said.
Gwynn and Ford recommend parents speak with their child’s pediatrician about any questions or concerns they have about the vaccines.
Dr. Louis St. Petery, a Tallahassee pediatric cardiologist, also called the change in the DeSantis administration’s position a “terrific step forward.”
Petery, as a pediatric cardiologist, treats children who are among the highest risk of contracting COVID-19 due to their heart issues.
“I think that the governor and the surgeon general have made it clear that they don’t believe in vaccination and that no children in Florida need to be vaccinated,” he said. “I think that caused a lot of damage long ago ... So hopefully, that’ll mean that a few more kids will actually get vaccinated.”
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