--- title: Florida Is About to Have a Lot More Sick Kids description: If the state lifts its vaccine mandates, it will "worsen the declining confidence in vaccines," writes Simon Williams. canonical: https://time.com/7315108/florida-vaccine-mandates-removal-simon-williams-essay/ author: Simon Williams article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-09-08T15:27:27.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-19T08:10:50.762Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Florida Is About to Have a Lot More Sick Kids og:description: If the state lifts its vaccine mandates, it will "worsen the declining confidence in vaccines," writes Simon Williams. og:url: https://time.com/7315108/florida-vaccine-mandates-removal-simon-williams-essay/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb6bc317086abe00a/6998c993a97fc07410a74a5c/GettyImages-1341339449.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2121 og:image:height: 1193 og:image:alt: vaccine vials og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Florida Is About to Have a Lot More Sick Kids twitter:description: If the state lifts its vaccine mandates, it will "worsen the declining confidence in vaccines," writes Simon Williams. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb6bc317086abe00a/6998c993a97fc07410a74a5c/GettyImages-1341339449.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Florida Is About to Have a Lot More Sick Kids > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=44fe5dce-147f-45fa-bfa9-e2a20381371d&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: DeSantis Backs Florida Surgeon General on Eliminating Vaccine Mandates [Watch (HLS stream): DeSantis Backs Florida Surgeon General on Eliminating Vaccine Mandates](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Z0KUqMmg.m3u8) (2:10)  _Published 2025-09-08. Florida’s Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, plans to remove the state’s vaccine mandates—a move that will lead to more infections, hospitalizations, and likely even some deaths of young children in the state. Lifting the mandate would almost certainly lead to lower vaccine uptake in Florida, and it will have implications for Americans more widely. Florida would be the first state to formally lift the vaccine mandate and may inspire other states to drop the requirement for children to get vaccinated before being able to attend school. It will also worsen the declining confidence in vaccines that a growing number of Americans are experiencing, influenced by the vaccine-skeptical rhetoric of Ladapo, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and other officials._ by [Simon Williams](https://time.com/author/simon-williams/) ## Simon Williams Sep 8, 2025 3:27 PM UTC Florida’s Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, plans to remove the state’s vaccine mandates—a move that will lead to more infections, hospitalizations, and likely even some deaths of young children in the state. Lifting the mandate would almost certainly lead to lower vaccine uptake in Florida, and it will have implications for Americans more widely. Florida would be the first state to formally lift the vaccine mandate and may inspire other states to drop the requirement for children to get vaccinated before being able to attend school. It will also worsen the declining confidence in vaccines that a growing number of Americans are experiencing, influenced by the vaccine-skeptical rhetoric of Ladapo, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and other officials. by [Simon Williams](https://time.com/author/simon-williams/) ## Simon Williams Sep 8, 2025 3:27 PM UTC Florida’s Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, [plans to remove the state’s vaccine mandates](https://time.com/7314268/florida-vaccine-mandates-schools-desantis/)—a move that will lead to more infections, hospitalizations, and likely even some deaths of young children in the state. Lifting the mandate would almost certainly lead to lower vaccine uptake in Florida, and it will have implications for Americans more widely. Florida would be the first state to formally lift the vaccine mandate and may inspire other states to drop the requirement for children to get vaccinated before being able to attend school. It will also worsen the declining confidence in vaccines that a growing number of Americans are experiencing, influenced by the vaccine-skeptical rhetoric of Ladapo, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and other officials. The requirement for children to have vaccines in order to attend school has helped the [U.S. maintain relatively high vaccine coverage](https://immunizationdata.who.int/dashboard/regions/region-of-the-americas/USA) against many terrible diseases, including measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, and more. But that can quickly go away. The U.S. has already started seeing a growth in the proportion of parents requesting non-medical exemptions, where they can opt their children out of required vaccines on philosophical or religious grounds. The increasing number of non-medical exemptions is one reason why the national [MMR rates for kindergarteners dropped below 95%](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/mm7341a3.htm)—the recommended threshold for herd immunity—in 2023 and continues to [decline](https://www.cdc.gov/schoolvaxview/data/index.html). There have been similar drops in vaccination coverage and increases in exemptions for other childhood vaccines. **Read More**: [_Exclusive: Inside the CDC Exodus and RFK Jr.’s Anti-Vaccine Crusade_](https://time.com/7314702/cdc-officials-resignations-rfk-jr-vaccines-exclusive/) There is a lot of [evidence](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4202987/) that communities with more non-medical exemptions from vaccine mandates have a higher risk of disease outbreaks. Relatively high coverage at the national and state levels obscures the fact that in some local areas, vaccine coverage is low due to high numbers of exemptions, [putting clusters of children at greater risk of disease](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14760584.2019.1562344). Florida doesn't have the best record on vaccination as it stands. The [latest data](https://www.cdc.gov/schoolvaxview/data/index.html) from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that 11.2% of eligible children in the state have not received both doses of the MMR vaccine, and more than 5% of eligible children are currently exempted from vaccination. Both figures are higher than the national average (although some states are much higher, with exemptions in states like Utah and Idaho being two and three times higher, respectively, than in Florida). Vaccine coverage in some counties is lower still. In Sarasota County for example, [less than 80% of kindergartners are vaccinated](https://www.flhealthcharts.gov/ChartsDashboards/rdPage.aspx?rdReport=NonVitalIndNoGrp.Dataviewer&cid=75), partly because non-medical [exemptions](https://fdoh.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=ff62d888a64a4211b50c166066a5cdc5) are more than double the state average—leaving schools and child-care centers vulnerable to outbreaks. Lifting the vaccine mandate will compound this problem, making it much easier for hesitant parents to not get their children vaccinated. While it is incumbent on medical practitioners and public-health authorities to understand and respond to parents' concerns by discussing why vaccines are safe and effective, it's also crucial to make it as easy as possible to get children vaccinated. Lifting the vaccine requirement will signal to some parents that vaccines aren’t that important. This comes at a time when much medical [misinformation](https://time.com/6564694/measles-antivaccine-misinformation/) about vaccines is spread across and beyond the U.S.—not least by key figures like Ladapo and Kennedy. Lapado has a history of controversial and sometimes [misinformed](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/florida-surgeon-general-spreads-covid-misinformation-in-booster-guidelines/) views, especially around COVID-19 vaccines and preventative policies. He has cited [falsehoods around mNRA](https://www.factcheck.org/2024/01/faulty-science-underpins-florida-surgeon-generals-call-to-halt-mrna-covid-19-vaccination/) vaccines and spread [spurious claims](https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/hiding-important-information-not-science) around debunked COVID-19 “treatments” like ivermectin. Kennedy is attacking immunizations on a much larger scale, pushing an anti-vaccine agenda, according to top CDC officials who resigned over Kennedy’s leadership. **Read More**: [_RFK Jr. Doubles Down on Vaccine Skepticism in Contentious Hearing_](https://time.com/7314750/rfk-jr-senate-hearing-vaccine-skepticism/) At the heart of the matter is the question of whether vaccination is to be seen as individual choice or collective responsibility. In announcing the plans, Ladapo asked, “Who am I to tell you what your child should put in their body?” Yet minimizing and possibly even eradicating infectious diseases is a collective act that requires nearly everyone to play their part. Perhaps the biggest concern is that the rhetoric around the removal of the mandates will likely worsen the declining confidence in childhood vaccines we are seeing. A [poll](https://news.gallup.com/poll/648308/far-fewer-regard-childhood-vaccinations-important.aspx) from last year found that only four-in-ten Americans felt that it was “extremely important” that parents get their children vaccinated, compared to six-in-ten just five years ago. This aligns with [global trends](https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/sowc%5F2023%5Fimmunization) where confidence in vaccines has been declining in many countries. There are a number of reasons why the perceived importance of vaccines has declined. One, ironically, is their success. Globally, [vaccines have saved over 150 million lives in the past 50 years](https://www.who.int/news/item/24-04-2024-global-immunization-efforts-have-saved-at-least-154-million-lives-over-the-past-50-years/). In the U.S. and other countries, most people, including many doctors, rarely if ever encounter cases of diseases like polio. If the U.S. fails to keep vaccine coverage high, we risk seeing more infectious disease outbreaks amongst children—and learning the hard way why vaccines were such a celebrated public-health invention in the first place. ## Transcript [00:00] And the reality is this since Covid and [00:03] the disaster that the medical establishment [00:05] inflicted on people and the lies that were told, [00:07] people have lost confidence in the medical establishment. [00:10] You have seen an increase in parents who are opting for those exemptions. [00:15] The surgeon General believes, and I believe, [00:18] that if you actually didn't say you've got to take this, [00:22] otherwise you're going to be punished. [00:23] I think you'd actually have more uptake on some of those. [00:26] I think there's some people, [00:27] they're being told they have to do it, [00:29] so they're opting for the exemption. [00:31] But one of the things that I think is really, [00:33] really frustrating to see how this gets weaponized. [00:36] First, we saw it during Covid. [00:37] They wanted to say that if you didn't get a Covid shot and show proof of that, [00:44] that you shouldn't be able to go to restaurants, [00:47] you shouldn't be able to go to sporting events, [00:49] shouldn't be able to attend college. [00:50] You shouldn't be able to go K through 12 school without having any data to back that up. [00:56] And they were even trying to impose mandates on people who had [00:59] recovered from Covid and had natural immunity. [01:03] So it was unscientific. [01:04] It was basically them trying to control. [01:07] In March of 2020, [01:09] Joe Ladapo said we shouldn't do lockdowns. [01:11] He was pilloried for saying that very few people were willing to say that. [01:16] He said you shouldn't be forcing young schoolchildren to wear masks. [01:20] Shortly thereafter, that he was pilloried for saying that. [01:24] He said that schools needed to be open for in-person instruction. [01:27] When Florida did it, [01:29] he was supportive of that. [01:30] He was pilloried for that. [01:32] He said, you should not mandate mRNA vaccines on people and let it be their choice. [01:39] He was pilloried for that. [01:41] So on all these different things, [01:43] he was doing what he thought was was [01:46] correct policy and what was in the interest of people, [01:49] including their individual freedom. [01:51] And he was pilloried. But yet he was right. [01:53] He was right on all those all those things. [01:56] The lockdowns were harmful. [01:58] The mask mandates on kids. [02:00] Now, I overruled those in Florida. [02:02] But, you know, there were school districts that wanted to do it. 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