In a briefing to a congressional subcommittee Tuesday, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo confirmed that the state decision to block county health departments from obtaining COVID-19 vaccines for young children may prohibit an estimated 30,000 disadvantaged kids from obtaining access to the vaccines.
But the state’s top health official also doubled-down on his criticism of the vaccine as appropriate for that age group.
“In Florida, we don’t recommend” coronavirus vaccines for children under 18, Ladapo told the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, according to a statement provided by the committee to the Miami Herald and the Washington bureau of McClatchy. Ladapo repeated his claim that adolescents are at “low risk” from the coronavirus, and he said there is “little data” on whether children benefit from the COVID-19 vaccines, the subcommittee said.
