Vaccine Mandate

The Florida Board of Education, next week, will consider taking action against 11 Public School Districts with mask mandates that are out of compliance with state rules and an executive order from Gov. Ron DeSantis.Sarasota School Board members, next week, will vote on whether to repeal the district’s mask policy.A federal COVID-19 vaccination mandate for hospitals is coming in October. Today marks the deadline for NCH employees to be fully vaccinated or risk losing their jobs. Sarasota Memorial Hospital and Lee Health are not imposing a staff vaccine mandate in advance of the federal mandate.Nearly 40% of COVID-19 deaths in Lee Health hospitals have been in the past two months amid the summer pandemic surge driven by the delta variant.A new report projects Florida will have a shortage of 60,000 nurses by 2035.With weekly unemployment claims rolling in at pre-pandemic numbers, state leaders say they remain optimistic about seeing results from a summer push to get people back into the labor force.Republican state lawmakers are sponsoring a bill that would exempt religious institutions from emergency orders.Florida families with children are now set to receive more than $1 billion in federal pandemic relief funds through a program created by Congress last year to assist children who lost access to free and reduced-price school meals when instruction shifted from in-person to virtual.

The Miami Dade and Leon County school districts are preparing to file a new lawsuit against Florida over the state’s efforts to ban student mask mandates. Eleven school districts across the state could face financial penalties for continuing to require student mask wearing.The Florida Department of Health has threatened Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings with fines over a vaccine mandate for county employees, but Demings said the mandate doesn’t violate state law as no worker can be fired for not getting the vaccine.Lee Health continues to report declines in the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in its hospitals.The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, this week, announced nearly $1 billion dollars in American Rescue Plan funding for community health centers that treat underserved communities that have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. The funding includes nearly $40 million for 45 health centers across Florida.The traditional flu season begins Friday as Florida continues its recovery from the worst surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. Health experts urge people to get the flu vaccine now.

Physician and researcher Dr. Joseph Ladapo was announced, Tuesday, as Florida’s new Surgeon General. In a news conference, Ladapo discussed his objection to mandates and lockdowns as tools to quell the spread of COVID-19, saying whether to get the vaccine should be a personal choice.Pfizer-BioNTech says its vaccine trial for 5-11-year-old kids is showing promising initial results. A vaccine for children may be approved by November or December.Manatee County Commissioners are among local elected leaders raising concerns about possibly being caught between state law banning COVID-19 vaccine mandates and President Biden's proposed federal mandate requiring large employers to require workers to get vaccinated, or be tested for the virus weekly.

Hospital officials from across Florida addressed members of the Florida House Pandemic and Public Emergencies Committee, calling impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic “devastating,” and highlighting the financial toll that treating COVID-19 hospitalized patients is having on healthcare systems.Hospitals in Southwest Florida continue to report declines in their populations of hospitalized COVID-19 patients even as the death toll remains high. State health officials reported 2,468 new COVID-19 deaths across Florida over the past week, bringing the statewide death toll from the pandemic to 51,240 fatalities.A Sarasota store owner has filed a lawsuit against Florida’s Surgeon General challenging a law that bars business owners from requiring proof of customers’ vaccination status before entering.

On Friday, Florida reported more than 75,000 COVID-19 cases over the past week, which marks a continuing decline from the summer surge driven by the delta variant. Over the past week, Florida reported an average of more than 10,800 new infections a day.Hospitals in Southwest Florida also continue to report gradual declines in admitted COVID-19 patients.A Florida Highway Patrol trooper in Fort Myers died of complications due to COVID-19 over the weekend. The coronavirus is the leading cause of death this year for law enforcement officers nationwide.Florida’s unemployment rate dropped to 5.0% in August as state leaders continue to push people back into the workforce.A University of Miami study (still pending peer review) finds that vaccinating teachers and cutting class sizes in half would be effective tools for mitigating the spread of COVID-19 in schools.