The COVID-19 pandemic has killed nearly one million people living in the United States. As experts have been saying for well over a year now, the best step a person can take to protect themselves and reduce community transmission at this time is to get vaccinated and boosted. And yet Florida, in line with its recent anti-science legislative wave, will be the first state to recommend that healthy children not receive the vaccine.
Sign now to demand the Florida Department of Health recommend all children get vaccinated!
From remote schooling to the inability to socialize and see family, children have suffered enough because irresponsible legislators have not taken the pandemic seriously. Now, ideological policy makers are risking increasing children's chances at a fatal COVID-19 infection. Research has repeatedly demonstrated that children who are vaccinated are less likely to be hospitalized for and die from COVID-19. So by offering a recommendation against vaccination, the Florida Department of Health is demonstrating it does not care if innocent children suffer and die.
This recommendation has consequences for all other members of the population, too. The more children that get infected by COVID-19, the more the virus will spread to other vulnerable populations, too. This recommendation will undoubtedly kill adult Floridians, too -- but it doesn't seem like state policy makers or health officials care.
The long-term consequences of COVID-19 infection are still unknown, but early data is concerning. Even people who are not hospitalized for COVID are at risk of long-COVID symptoms, which have proven stubbornly persistent. Vaccination is our best step towards reducing the likelihood of all bad COVID outcomes -- from long COVID to hospitalization to death – and we cannot allow the state of Florida to gamble so many lives with such a reckless recommendation. Sign the petition now to tell the Florida Department of Health to listen to the science and support vaccination for all children!
