Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis today called for a special session of the Florida legislature to help write laws to protect the rights of workers and combat vaccine mandate policies.
DeSantis spoke at the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office Hangar in front of firemen, airline pilots, nurses and police officers who’ve been fired or had their jobs threatened by government COVID policy.
DeSantis, who said the issue is too important to wait until the next scheduled legislative session in January, expects the special session to happen in November.
“Legislative action against these illegal mandates is not something that can wait until a new legislative session next year, so we will be calling the legislature back for a special session,” DeSantis said.
“We want to provide protection for people,” DeSantis said. “Your right to earn a living should not be not be contingent on COVID shots.”
According to the governor, the special session will also address making businesses liable for any medical harm that results from a mandatory vaccination.
DeSantis said:
“If someone was forced by their employer to receive a COVID vaccine and had an adverse reaction, that business should be liable since it wasn’t an individual choice … in terms of legislation we want to provide protections and legal avenues for these people. It’s not a free choice if you say ‘get a shot or lose your job’ … that’s not a free choice for a lot of people because their livelihood is hanging in the balance.”
DeSantis also signaled the special legislative session will address vaccine mandates on hospitals.
“We will oppose the mandates that are being put on hospitals … they’re saying if you don’t do forced injections then you lose medicare and medicaid funding. None of these healthcare providers would even be able to function, particularly in a state like Florida where most patients are on medicare. It’s illegal and wrong.”
The governor claimed state policies and protections addressing mandates would have been signed into law during the last legislative session, but he never expected things would get this far.
“Both Dr. Fauci and President Biden very clearly stated the COVID vaccines wouldn’t and shouldn’t be mandated,” he said. “And now they’re mandating it, which I think is wrong.”
DeSantis also said the upcoming emergency legislative session will present an opportunity to strengthen parental rights.
“It’s also important to fortify parents’ rights, and we as the Florida government, need to provide an avenue for parents to take recourse against schools that violate the parental bill of rights with their COVID policies,” DeSantis said.
Speaking alongside DeSantis, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo addressed vaccine safety.
“No matter what the people on TV tell you, it’s not true, there is more to learn about in regards to the safety of these vaccines,” Ladapo said.
Ladapo added:
“At first they told us that these vaccines will stop transmission and the rates of protection were greater than 90%. Well here we are 10 months later and we’re finding that the protection these vaccines afford people is only 40%, and for some of them even less.”
Ladapo said some people are not comfortable with these vaccines because of “the climate of scientific dishonesty about the official science.”
“The reality of how safe these vaccines are is not public,” he said.
Watch the press event here: