DeSantis won't enforce Biden's health-care worker mandate

'The state of Florida is not going to serve as the Biden administration’s biomedical police'

By Art Moore
Published January 14, 2022 at 7:42pm

Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla. (Video screenshot)

Refusing to be President Biden's "biomedical police," Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said his state will not enforce the federal government's mandatory vaccination policy for health care workers after it was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday.

"Firing unvaccinated healthcare workers, many of whom have infection-conferred immunity, is unethical and unscientific on its face," said Christina Pushaw, press secretary foe DeSantis, in an email to the USA TODAY Network-Florida.

The governor's office argued that patients are being harmed because "hospitals in California and other states are now requiring vaccinated, COVID-infected healthcare workers to treat patients due to staffing shortages — which were exacerbated by vaccine mandates."

While the Biden administration's Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services mandate was upheld 5-4, the Supreme Court on Thursday struck down 6-3 the OSHA mandate requiring private companies with 100 or more employees to ensure their workers are vaccinated or tested regularly.

But Biden said after the ruling that employers and states should "do the right thing" and carry out the mandate, insisting it "will save lives."

"I am disappointed that the Supreme Court has chosen to block common-sense life-saving requirements for employees at large businesses that were grounded squarely in both science and the law," Biden said. "This emergency standard allowed employers to require vaccinations or to permit workers to refuse to be vaccinated, so long as they were tested once a week and wore a mask at work: a very modest burden."

At a press conference, DeSantis called the health-care worker mandate "absolutely insane," noting the nursing shortage after nurses who had natural immunity against COVID-19 were fired because they were unvaccinated.

So now, he said, hospitals "are bringing back on the job vaccinated nurses who are currently COVID-positive."

Should DeSantis enforce Biden's health-care worker mandate?

"So, if you’re unvaccinated, naturally immune, and uninfected ... they fire you, but if you're COVID-positive and vaxed, which we know most of the people that are COVID-positive now are vaxed, they are going back on the job," DeSantis said.

See DeSantis' remarks:

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that CMS's "requirements for healthcare workers to be vaccinated will save the lives of patients, as well as the lives of doctors, nurses, and others who work in healthcare settings."

"It will cover 17 million healthcare workers at 76,000 medical facilities. The Supreme Court upheld it, and we will enforce that."

https://www.wnd.com/2022/01/desantis-wont-enforce-bidens-health-care-worker-mandate/

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