The summer COVID-19 surge continues, with levels of COVID activity measured in wastewater data reported to be at “very high” levels in nearly half of the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The new COVID vaccine is now available through CVC and Walgreens, as well as through clinics and health care providers. With the vaccine being released, Florida Department of Public Health Commissioner Joseph Ladapo is urging everyone to stay up to date on the risks of the vaccine.
In a statement on Thursday titled “Updated Guidance for COVID-19 Booster Vaccinations for the Fall/Winter 2024-2025 Season,” the Florida Department of Health repeated the same arguments Ladapo made in January when he did not recommend the use of mRNA vaccines, saying the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had not adequately responded to his questions about the drug's safety.
“Based on high rates of immunity worldwide and currently available data, the state Surgeon General recommends against the use of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines,” the FDOH statement said.
The FDA responded to Ladapo in December, rejecting each of his concerns point by point and warning that “misinformation and disinformation” about the vaccines would discourage people from getting vaccinated and “continue to lead to an increase in deaths and serious illnesses from COVID-19.”
Florida COVID-19 Infection Rates
Florida saw a decline in cases in August compared to last year, with 62,038 cases reported this year compared to 91,941 in August 2023. Both figures are almost certainly low because many people are self-testing at home and some people who are infected are not getting tested at all.
But COVID deaths have remained similar to last year, with 828 deaths in August last year compared with 877 in 2023. The average number of deaths in the four months prior to this year was 265.
To date, 8.2 million Floridians have had at least one COVID-19 infection and 97,250 have died, according to FDOH data.
Ladapo claims vaccines don't protect against new strains despite FDA assurances
Along with seven concerns about the effectiveness and health risks of the mRNA vaccine and booster (which experts say have either been proven false or fail to recognize the much higher threat of COVID infection for the same issues), the FDOH statement warned that “the booster does not protect against the currently dominant strain, which accounts for approximately 37% of infections in the United States,” and said the vaccine was approved without specific testing on humans.
The improved vaccine, which has been granted emergency use authorization for distribution this fall, is designed to target the KP.2 strain, but also “more specifically targets currently circulating variants and provides greater protection against severe outcomes of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death,” the FDA said in a statement.
As of the latest CDC Nowcast Data Tracker, which shows biweekly COVID-19 estimates and projections, the Omicron KP.3.1.1 variant accounts for 52.7% of positive cases from Sept. 1 to Sept. 14, followed by KP.2.3 at 12.2%, LB.1 at 10.9% and KP.3 at 10.6%.
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Yale School of Medicine all say the new booster shot protects against the latest variants.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends everyone aged 6 months or older receive the latest COVID-19 vaccine to help prevent potentially serious outcomes from COVID-19 this fall and winter season.
Ladapo's history of criticising COVID vaccines
September 2021: Within a day of being hired, Ladapo signed a new rule allowing parents to decide whether their children who may have been exposed to COVID-19 can attend school, eliminating the previous requirement that potentially exposed students quarantine off campus for at least four days. October 2021: Ladapo publicly sided with Governor DeSantis, supporting his views on blocking vaccinations and mask mandates and accusing the public health community of fear-mongering. Critics accused Ladapo of spreading misinformation that causes people to hesitate or fear getting vaccinated. Ladapo sparked intense criticism when he refused to wear a mask around Democratic state Senator Tina Polsky, despite her telling him that she had a serious medical condition (later found to be breast cancer) that put her at high risk for serious complications from COVID-19. December 2021: The Florida Department of Health dismisses a complaint about Ladapo alleging he violated state health law by publicly questioning COVID-19 vaccines and promoting unproven treatments. January 2022: At a press conference, DeSantis and Ladapo tell Floridians who are not showing symptoms not to get tested. “If you don't have symptoms, you're not infected,” Ladapo said, ignoring the recommendations of the CDC and virologists. June 2022: The Florida Department of Health, under Governor DeSantis and Ladapo, refuses to pre-order a COVID-19 vaccine for children under 5 when it becomes available, citing lack of need and risk. This is the only U.S. state to refuse to pre-order the vaccine. Ladapo appears in Congress to defend the state's decision, saying the state does not recommend the vaccine for children under 18. October 2022: Ladapo urged men under 40 to avoid the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines and booster shots, citing an anonymous, non-peer-reviewed analysis from the Florida Department of Health, because “men in this age group are at unusually high risk of cardiac-related death.” The move drew backlash from doctors, researchers and the federal government. At the time, Florida led the nation in COVID deaths for three consecutive months. January 2023: A task force of doctors from the University of Florida College of Medicine concluded that the FDOH's recommendation against COVID vaccinations for young men was “highly questionable” and that Ladapo had arbitrarily cherry-picked data to support his position. Politico went further, reporting that after reviewing various drafts of the analysis, Ladapo had personally altered the study to remove data that contradicted his views. Ladapo denies this. March 2023: In response to Ladapo's letter requesting answers based on his own research on the safety of the vaccine, the FDA and CDC asked them to stop overly focusing on the small number of side effects in studies of the 13 billion COVID vaccinations administered worldwide and ignoring the number of people saved by the vaccine. April 2023: The FDOH, led by Ladapo, stopped reporting COVID case and death counts to the federal government. September 2023: Ladapo recommended that new FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine booster shots to combat new, more infectious variants not be given to people under 65, in direct contradiction to CDC guidance. He claimed that mRNA boosters changed human DNA, but the CDC and multiple studies say that's false. November 2023: After a two-year battle over COVID public records, the Florida Department of Health, led by Ladapo, settled a lawsuit over non-public COVID data and made information covering the entire duration of the pandemic public on the state's FLHealthCHARTS.gov site. However, the agency also stopped providing data on cumulative totals, percentages, new positives, booster doses, and summaries that would make it easier to spot trends. January 2024: Ladapo again makes headlines by “calling for a pause on mRNA COVID-19 vaccines,” saying he had not received adequate answers from the FDA about the vaccine's safety. Meanwhile, Florida was seeing a surge in new COVID cases and hospitalizations.
Contributor: Ajane Forbes, USA TODAY
