ORLANDO, Fla. — The suspension of Orange County’s Dr. Raul Pino — after urging his health department staff to get vaccinated against COVID-19 — is the most blatant example yet of the state’s increasingly tight muzzle on health authorities fighting the pandemic, critics say, making Florida one of the most repressive in the nation when it comes to public health matters.
According to six sources, including former Florida Department of Health employees, the state in recent years has required even the most mundane public statements to be approved by administrators in Tallahassee. And previous governors have been known to forbid county-level health workers from speaking in public forums on such topics as climate change.
But the heavily politicized COVID-19 pandemic appears to have brought a new level of scrutiny.
