patrick.net

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis promised to “fight” any attempt by the federal government to mandate vaccinations or COVID-19 tests on private businesses and individuals.

On Thursday, President Joe Biden announced a sweeping new plan to combat COVID-19, including mandating vaccinations for all federal employees and contractors and threatening businesses with fines unless they require their employees to either get vaccinated or submit to weekly COVID-19 tests. DeSantis reacted to early reports of Biden’s executive order in a press conference promoting the use of monoclonal antibodies to treat severe cases of COVID-19.

“How could we get to the point in the country where you would want to have someone lose their job because of their choice about the vaccine or not? I mean, look, some folks have reasons to do — maybe they’re making the wrong decision — but to put them out of work and not let them earn a living because of this, I just think that that’s fundamentally wrong,” DeSantis said, later adding: “I do not believe that people should lose their jobs over this issue, and we will fight that. If they try to do that through a rule like the Department of Labor, I don’t think they have the legal authority to do that, but we obviously would want to support protections for people who are just trying to earn a living.”

DeSantis went on to critique Biden’s plan for convincing Americans to get vaccinated, saying that education rather than mandates had better results while being less intrusive.

“The people that have had the higher vaccination rates in businesses have been ones that have had programs where they’re educating people, where they’re providing them all the information, showing some of the consequences,” DeSantis said.