Now that the Legislature’s season of making it harder for the public to vote and protest is at an end, the time has come to focus on how to finish the important job of vaccinating Floridians against COVID-19.
Perhaps you feel as if things are bumping along nicely, with infections dropping (a little) and the Centers for Disease Control relaxing mask recommendations. You’d be mistaken: Now is when the real crackpots come out to play.
Consider that a private school in South Florida, partly funded by an anti-vaccination activist, last week warned teachers and staffers that they could be lose their jobs if they receive an anti-COVID shot over the summer. At the very least, they would be kept away from the student body when school starts.
That’s because Leila Centner, co-founder of the Centner Academy, doesn’t want those reckless people with vaccine coursing through their veins to disrupt the menstrual cycles of women who haven’t had the shot.
Centner claimed that the school had “at least three women” whose reproductive cycles were “impacted after having spent time with a vaccinated person.”
Light the bonfires! Round up the witches! Let’s have a good old-fashioned toasting!
Twisted humor aside, this apparently needs saying: Vaccines cannot affect people who have not received the injection. Period. They can neither harm people nor help people through some as-yet uncharted psychic transfer of vaccine serum.
Centner and her husband are fierce Republican supporters. Now, unfortunately, they’ve become the funhouse mirror version of far too many in the GOP.
Some polls now show that nearly half of Republican men and a third of Republican women don’t intend to get the COVID vaccine. A recent NPR/PBS/Marist Poll showed that 47% of former President Donald Trump’s supporters from 2020 said they will refuse the jab. Some 73% of Democrats said they either had gotten a shot or would do so as soon as one was available.
Unfortunately, health experts say at that least 70% to 85% of the country’s population will need to be COVID-resistant, either from previous infection or vaccination, to reach what’s called herd immunity, the point where the virus effectively stops spreading because it can’t infect enough people in a community to get traction.
Florida is far from herd immunity with only about 28% of people fully vaccinated and 41% with one dose of the vaccine.
Now comes the scary part — the demand for vaccinations has waned dramatically. The average daily number of residents being vaccinated nationally has declined 20% in the past two weeks.
Some think the vaccines are too risky or it’s too much trouble to get one or that everyone else will get one and they will be OK. None of these things is true.
Here’s what’s true: The vaccines are remarkably safe and very easy to get. Many places distributing them now are accepting walk-ups with little wait. Those who get vaccinated either won’t get the virus or won’t get as sick as they might if they had chosen not to get the shot.
But the single biggest reason to do it is that it is a gift — a sign of respect and caring for your community, a signal of unity in the face of adversity.
Last year, on April 27, Florida reported 610 new cases as the pandemic just cranked up. This year on the same date — it was Tuesday — the state logged 5,271 newly sickened people. That’s not a marvelous figure. Neither is the 35,000 Floridians who have died from the disease so far and the dozens who keep dying every day.
Clearly, we have considerable work ahead. Florida must step up to convince those who are reluctant to get the shot.
Florida needs a swift kick in the pants to send the coronavirus on its way permanently.
So far, vaccine leadership has been left to private business. The Walt Disney Co., for example, is giving workers four hours of extra pay for getting vaccinated. Darden Restaurants, which has 1,820 eateries, is handing out two hours of extra pay for each of two jabs. Excellent response, employers!
A clever and aggressive social media campaign could help convince younger folks that it’s in their best interest, their family’s and their community’s to be vaccinated.
So far, government has done little. The Legislature squandered its recent session focused on fighting culture wars. The response from Gov. Ron DeSantis in the face of slumping vaccine interest? Crickets.
It’s not too late. There’s still time for state leaders — particularly prominent Republicans, whose party is turning vaccination hesitation into a political weapon — to reverse the trend.
They can do it on social media. They can do it through TV ads. They can do it through their formidable fundraising networks. How refreshing it would be for an email blast to target COVID instead of Democrats, and urge supporters to donate 5 bucks and go get a vaccination.
Elected officials must move quickly to provide a jolt of reality, combined with encouragement to get this job done. Without a concerted plan — and Florida clearly doesn’t have one at the moment — more unnecessary death, sorrow and economic suffering are in Florida’s future.
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Editorials are the opinion of the Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board and are written by one of its members or a designee. The editorial board consists of Opinion Editor Mike Lafferty, Jennifer A. Marcial Ocasio, Jay Reddick and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Send emails to insight@orlandosentinel.com .
