What is the cost of COVID, the price paid for failing to get vaccinated? The Pasco County school district can put a number on it: more than $11 million. That’s the deficit in its self-insured health policy, and 97 percent of the COVID-related claims last year came from staffers who said they weren’t vaccinated. That’s just the price tag. It doesn’t account for the pain of catching COVID or dealing with long-haul symptoms — or dying. Imagine how much lower all those costs would have been if state leaders had pushed for vaccinations and masks instead of against them?
Gov. Ron DeSantis claims it’s time to “close the curtain on COVID theater.” Actually, it’s time to pull the curtain shut on the pandemic, and the best way to safely get back to normal is to be vaccinated and to wear a mask when appropriate — not all the time, just in crowded spaces or around immunocompromised people. It’s really that simple.
Instead, the governor and his surgeon general are recommending that parents don’t get their healthy children vaccinated against COVID. The message is part of their generally blasé/tepid/nonchalant/chilly attitude toward the COVID vaccine and follow-up boosters. The governor has also taken to scolding people for wearing masks — calling it ridiculous. He and his surgeon general are wrong. Masks work — particularly N95s. Vaccines work. Ask your pediatrician, not a politician, for medical advice for your child.
The vaccination protects children as well as the vulnerable adults those kids encounter — the grandparent at home or the teacher in the classroom. The vaccine doesn’t make them immune, but it reduces the chances of catching COVID and lessens the severity if they do. Only 60 percent of Florida kids between 12 and 19 have had even one shot. Only 22 percent of 5- to 11-year-olds have gotten the jab. Compare that to fully 95 percent of Floridians 65 and older.
While COVID cases among kids are often mild, that’s not always true. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention points out that COVID ranks as one of the top 10 causes of death for children ages 5 through 11 years. The numbers don’t lie, and that’s why both the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend the vaccines for all kids who are eligible, as does Johns Hopkins Medicine. Sure, they have an agenda, and it’s the health of our children.
The $11 million in medical claims in Pasco would be enough to cover the salaries of 250 new teachers for a year. And that’s just the extra medical costs in one county’s school system, almost all of it due to unvaccinated people who caught COVID. Multiply that by other districts and businesses and the numbers get big really fast. And yet, the governor and his surgeon general pushed their no-vaccines-for-healthy-kids agenda on the same day that officials announced that the pandemic has killed at least 6 million people globally, according to data from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. In the days to come, COVID will have claimed 1 million American lives.
Yes, things are getting better. Omicron is ebbing. But ebbing isn’t the same as “over.” Florida has lately been averaging 172 deaths a day. The daily average since the pandemic began is less than 100. That doesn’t sound like the threat is over.
COVID has killed more than 71,000 in the Sunshine State, with a population of 22 million. California with its 39.5 million people recorded 86,429 COVID deaths. Accounting for the difference in population, 153 Floridians have died from COVID for every 100 Californian deaths since the pandemic began. The numbers are even worse since May, when vaccines became widely available. During that time, 256 Floridians have died for every 100 Californians, again accounting for population. That’s 2.5 times as many deaths.
Florida has an older population than California, and older people are more susceptible to COVID, but that’s all the more reason for our state leaders to champion masks and vaccines, instead of treating them like an afterthought — or worse, railing against them. Plus, with fatality numbers like these the governor should be wary of repeatedly using California as the bogeyman to tout his “free state” of Florida.
Let’s hope the worst is behind us, but the way to keep it there isn’t to pretend that it’s over. Rather, it’s to be cautious while living close to a normal life. The governor bullying school kids who wear masks at his news conference doesn’t help. Neither does recommending against child vaccinations and claiming that it’s science.
Continuing to encourage vaccines and masks when appropriate is not COVID theater. It is the responsible way back to the future.
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Editorials are the institutional voice of the Tampa Bay Times. The members of the Editorial Board are Editor of Editorials Graham Brink, Sherri Day, Sebastian Dortch, John Hill, Jim Verhulst and Chairman Paul Tash. Follow @TBTimes_Opinion on Twitter for more opinion news.
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