Florida only state not preordering toddler COVID-19 vaccines

Florida is the only state that hasn’t preordered COVID-19 vaccines for toddlers in anticipation of their final approval by the federal government, and Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday that he won’t facilitate their distribution, though he said they’ll be available to those who want them.

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre, who confirmed Florida’s outlier status on Thursday, said not preordering the vaccines could mean delaying their availability in children’s hospitals and other facilities that have relied on state distribution of the shots.

Florida's officials said the jabs would be available at pharmacies and community health centers, which can preorder them directly from the federal government, and that children’s hospitals and other clinics would be able to order them from the federal government via a state portal and receive them quickly.

"Doctors can get it. Hospitals can get it. But there’s not going to be any state programs that are going to be trying to get COVID jabs to infants and toddlers and newborns," DeSantis said at a news conference. "That’s not where we’re gonna be utilizing our resources."

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo is opposed to COVID-19 vaccinations for children under age 5.

"From what I have seen, there is just insufficient data to inform benefits and risk in children. I think that’s very unequivocal," Ladapo told reporters this week. The surgeon general, who also is secretary of the state Department of Health, said his opinion on vaccinating infants and young children is "consistent" with the department’s other guidance on vaccines. "We expect to have good data that the benefits outweigh the risks of any therapies or treatments before we recommend those therapies or treatments to Floridians. That is not going to change. I don’t think that is particularly radical. I think it’s very sensible," Ladapo said.

While Florida’s Health Department does not recommend COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children under 17, it says children with underlying health conditions should be considered candidates for them. That advice contradicts the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which so far has recommended the vaccines for everyone 5 years and older, saying the shots provide strong protection against hospitalization and death.

In Florida, pharmacies and several supermarket chains, plus some community health centers, can preorder vaccines directly from the federal government. Other venues such as hospitals have previously benefited from the state’s preordering of shots. However, they also can order them directly from the federal government via a Florida government web portal and receive the doses within days or a week, said health department spokesman Jeremy Redfern.

Preordering the shots would mean the Florida health department would stockpile them, ship them to county-level health departments, and then out to the hospitals, Redfern said. Hospitals that use the portal will be receiving the shots directly from the federal government, he said.

"The timing doesn’t necessarily change" significantly, Redfern said. "This just cuts out the middle man."

Jean-Pierre, at a news conference in Washington, said parents would be able to access children’s vaccines through federal distribution channels at pharmacies and community health centers, "but those are limited options."

"We encouraged Florida on several occasions to order vaccines," Jean-Pierre said. By not doing so, the state "will not have immediate, ready access to some," she said.

The final OK could come this weekend for vaccines for kids under 5. The Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisers gave a thumbs-up Wednesday to kid-size doses from Pfizer and Moderna for children as young as 6 months, deciding the benefits of the shots outweigh any risks.