# Florida is scrapping their childhood vaccine mandates **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Created:** [September 3, 2025, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-scrapping-their-childhood-vaccine-mandates/1022716 "2025-09-03T17:25:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-scrapping-their-childhood-vaccine-mandates/1022716/21 "2025-09-04T01:36:09Z")
I recall something from a famous 1800s pundit to the effect that someday the public will elect the politicians and policies they really want. And then they’ll get it/them. Gooi and hard. Freedumb can be summarized as doing whatever you want and thereby getting everything you desire. Oops; cause and effect don’t work that way. Reality is sooo much less convenient than that pipe dream. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-scrapping-their-childhood-vaccine-mandates/1022716/22 "2025-09-04T01:50:41Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > While I won’t say that’s their plan, this is the direction they’ve been pointing us towards for the last few years, so it’s hardly a surprise. Though thats what makes this so evil. It’s not part of their plan. This serves no purpose (even an evil GOP purpose like white supremacy or subjugation of women). De Santis’s kids are vaccinated, he knows the antivax movement is bullshit. But the GOP has co-opted the antivax movement and this is what’s needed to cement them as Republican voters. So those kids must die,.the alternative would be to risk those antivaxers staying home next election. ---
**Author:** ![Ellecram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellecram/32/18948_2.png) [@Ellecram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellecram)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-scrapping-their-childhood-vaccine-mandates/1022716/23 "2025-09-04T01:50:52Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Seriously f\_cking evil bastards. > > This will kill children. Lots of them. Not just in Florida. And the people doing that know this, they are not stupid people. > > Like so much evil sh\_t is happening right now, but this stands out for me. The ONLY reason for this is to pander to the antivax extremists that the GOP has decided to co-opt for political purposes. And these bastards know that. They weighed up killing their constituents children vs the votes of the antivax contingent and decided the votes were worth it This really sent me spiraling today. The constant lurching into darkness has me feeling pretty wrecked. Starting to feel like I don’t fit into this society anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-scrapping-their-childhood-vaccine-mandates/1022716/24 "2025-09-04T02:00:43Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Though thats what makes this so evil. It’s not part of their plan. This serves no purpose (even an evil GOP purpose like white supremacy or subjugation of women). De Santis’s kids are vaccinated, he knows the antivax movement is bullshit. At what point do we lose the benefits of herd immunity? When I was a wee lad, it wasn’t a problem if there were a few kids at my school with nutjob parents who refused to vaccinate because the vast majority of the student body complied with vaccination mandates. Vaccines aren’t 100% effective, so the higher the percentage of non-vaccinated children goes up the more dangerous it is even for the vaccinated children. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-scrapping-their-childhood-vaccine-mandates/1022716/25 "2025-09-04T02:06:34Z")
Same here. For some reason, this made me more angry than the rest of the daily disasters. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-scrapping-their-childhood-vaccine-mandates/1022716/26 "2025-09-04T02:24:50Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > At what point do we lose the benefits of herd immunity? When I was a wee lad, it wasn’t a problem if there were a few kids at my school with nutjob parents who refused to vaccinate because the vast majority of the student body complied with vaccination mandates. Vaccines aren’t 100% effective, so the higher the percentage of non-vaccinated children goes up the more dangerous it is even for the vaccinated children. See [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity). The herd immunity threshold (HIT) for a highly contagious disease like measles is 92-95%, so once vaccination rates drop below that threshold you can expect the disease to start circulating again. Which is exactly what we are seeing in areas where the vaccination rates have dropped to that point. Polio is less contagious, so the HIT is lower: 80-86%. If trends continue and vaccine mandates are removed I would not be surprised to see polio make a resurgence here in the U.S. It has by no means been eradicated worldwide, and it only takes one traveler to bring a case back with them. See the Wikipedia article for the HIT of other diseases. We may soon get to see what life was like for our forebears. > **[Herd immunity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity)** > > Herd immunity (also called herd effect, community immunity, population immunity, or mass immunity) is a form of indirect protection that applies only to contagious diseases. It occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population has become immune to an infection, whether through previous infections or vaccination, that the communicable pathogen cannot maintain itself in the population, its low incidence thereby reducing the likelihood of infection for individuals who lack immunity. > Once the he... ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-scrapping-their-childhood-vaccine-mandates/1022716/27 "2025-09-04T02:29:28Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > At what point do we lose the benefits of herd immunity? This seems designed to bring us below herd immunity. It’s not going to mean no one is vaccinated, but it will bring the vaccination rate down by several percent, in a state the size of Florida. Thats 23 million people below herd immunity ([7-8 out of 10 being](https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/herd-immunity.html) around the threshold according to the Internet) ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-scrapping-their-childhood-vaccine-mandates/1022716/28 "2025-09-04T02:51:17Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > At what point do we lose the benefits of herd immunity? > **[Measles Cases and Outbreaks](https://www.cdc.gov/measles/data-research/index.html)** > > Find the latest numbers of confirmed U.S. measles cases. CDC updates this page weekly. > _The measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine is very safe and effective. When more than 95% of people in a community are vaccinated (coverage \>95%), most people are protected through community immunity (herd immunity). However, vaccination coverage among U.S. kindergartners has decreased from 95.2% during the 2019–2020 school year to 92.7% in the 2023–2024 school year, leaving approximately 280,000 kindergartners at risk during the 2023–2024 school year._ Stranger ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-scrapping-their-childhood-vaccine-mandates/1022716/29 "2025-09-04T03:04:02Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > That doctor needs his license revoked! Indeed; he’s a dangerous idiot, who became a darling of the anti-vaxx GOP crowd in 2020, due to crap like this (via [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Ladapo)): > [@](#): > > Around early 2020, Ladapo began to write op-eds for _[The Wall Street Journal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_Street_Journal)_ on the emerging COVID-19 pandemic, notwithstanding a lack of specialization in infectious diseases, and gained prominence as a skeptic of mainstream consensus on prevention and treatment.[[4]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Ladapo#cite_note-:7-4) In these columns, Ladapo promoted unproven treatments, including [hydroxychloroquine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloroquine_and_hydroxychloroquine_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic) and [ivermectin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic), questioned the safety of vaccines, and opposed lockdown and mask mandates deriving from his “experience in treating COVID-19 patients at [University of California, Los Angeles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California,_Los_Angeles).”[[4]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Ladapo#cite_note-:7-4)[[7]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Ladapo#cite_note-:422-7)[[18]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Ladapo#cite_note-:2-18)[[8]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Ladapo#cite_note-:6-8)[[19]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Ladapo#cite_note-:13-19) However, UCLA’s staff scheduling roster did not have him assigned to treat any COVID-19 patients, and several of his colleagues said he had never treated any COVID-19 patients.[[20]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Ladapo#cite_note-:4-20)[[21]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Ladapo#cite_note-21) Later that year, Ladapo signed the [Great Barrington Declaration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrington_Declaration), which argued for reaching COVID-19 [herd immunity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity) by the fringe notion of “focused protection”, where the less vulnerable people were allowed to be infected. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-scrapping-their-childhood-vaccine-mandates/1022716/30 "2025-09-04T03:05:29Z")
> [@robby](#): > > Polio is less contagious, so the HIT is lower: 80-86% I should clarify here that polio is less contagious _when compared to measles_, which is one of the most contagious diseases in existence. In an unvaccinated population, each person infected with measles is expected to spread it to 12-18 others. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-scrapping-their-childhood-vaccine-mandates/1022716/31 "2025-09-04T03:08:00Z")
If you are rational, at this point why would you want to raise a family in Florida? ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-scrapping-their-childhood-vaccine-mandates/1022716/32 "2025-09-04T03:15:33Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Indeed; he’s a dangerous idiot, who became a darling of the anti-vaxx GOP crowd in 2020 Yeah he seems to be a crazy person who actually believes this crap. De Santis who appointed him does not. De Santis appointed him to show his antivax credentials knowing full well he would do stuff like this that is A: utter bullshit. and B: guaranteed to kill Florida’s children in large numbers ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-scrapping-their-childhood-vaccine-mandates/1022716/33 "2025-09-04T03:30:57Z")
Idiocy like this makes me soooooooo glad my daughter and SIL moved from Orlando to near us in Maryland shortly after my granddaughter was born. They don’t need to expose their kids to crowds of unvaxxed classmates. ---
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-scrapping-their-childhood-vaccine-mandates/1022716/34 "2025-09-04T11:01:12Z")
If you are poor, you may not have the means to move. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-scrapping-their-childhood-vaccine-mandates/1022716/35 "2025-09-04T12:18:33Z")
I wonder what percentage of Florida parents really want their children to be able unvaccinated. I suspect it’s a very small percentage. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-scrapping-their-childhood-vaccine-mandates/1022716/36 "2025-09-04T12:33:11Z")
Why would you think that? This shows that Florida was already one of the lower vaccination rate states: > **[Headed Back To School in 2023: A Look at Children’s Routine Vaccination Trends...](https://www.kff.org/covid-19/headed-back-to-school-in-2023-a-look-at-childrens-routine-vaccination-trends/)** > > This issue brief examines the most recent trends in children’s routine vaccinations, including COVID-19, and explores what to watch as children head back to school this year. And, that was a few years ago, and anti-vax hysteria has only gotten louder since then, and that was when Florida still had a mandate. With the continued rise in anti-vax sentiment and if they’re successful in removing mandates, we’re all screwed, because measles doesn’t know anything about state boundaries. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-scrapping-their-childhood-vaccine-mandates/1022716/37 "2025-09-04T12:48:19Z")
Not to mention, I’m more concerned about the number of people who are just too ignorant or negligent to prioritize vaccinations for their kids unless the government forces them to do it than the number of people who are stridently opposed to vaccines. I think that number could be many times higher, but those kids are just as likely to catch and spread measles as kids whose parents are dedicated RFK cultists. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-scrapping-their-childhood-vaccine-mandates/1022716/38 "2025-09-04T12:50:39Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I wonder what percentage of Florida parents really want their children to be able unvaccinated. I suspect it’s a very small percentage. Being a person who is well-informed about the medical miracle of vaccination you would think that but there are two distinct groups of people who would disagree with that viewpoint. One are ‘low information’ people who don’t really understand anything about disease and vaccination, who feel—not entirely without justification—that the government isn’t really serving them in important ways (even though from a public health standpoint it absolutely is, or at least was until recently), and have been frightened by self-promoting ‘alternative authorities’ like RFK Jr claiming that vaccines pose a grossly outsized risk (despite credible evidence) instead of a protective benefit. The other are religious zealots (mostly Christian Fundamentalists) who believe that vaccines are an affront to their god and/or somehow produced by devil worshiping scientists using aborted fetuses, and they and their children will be sent to the literal Christian Hell if they are vaccinated. (This is not hyperbole; I had this explained to me recently by someone as the reason for homeschooling his children because they wouldn’t comply with vaccine mandates.) There are probably more anti-vax parents in Florida than you would suspect. Not a majority, but a vocal enough minority to form a polity that people like Ron DeSantis want to appeal to even though he knows they are nuts. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-scrapping-their-childhood-vaccine-mandates/1022716/39 "2025-09-04T12:57:59Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Not to mention, I’m more concerned about the number of people who are just too ignorant or negligent to prioritize vaccinations for their kids unless the government forces them to do it You know, I hadn’t even thought of this. If you MUST get your kid vaxxed in order for them to start school, you just get it done, but otherwise, you’ll get it done, you know, when you get around to it, maybe. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-scrapping-their-childhood-vaccine-mandates/1022716/40 "2025-09-04T13:03:53Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I wonder what percentage of Florida parents really want their children to be able unvaccinated. I suspect it’s a very small percentage It doesn’t have to be a big percentage. If the vaccination rate is already hovering around the threshold for head immunity (which it seems to be, depending which disease) then a small drop will have a huge effect And I don’t think it will be that small, there are two groups of parents who this will push over the line into not vaccinating… - People who are somewhat anti-vax but not enough to do the paperwork to avoid the existing vaccine mandate. In terms of results there is a huge difference between “you need to fill out this form to explain why your kid is not vaccinated” and “vaccinated, unvaccinated, we don’t care” - People who don’t care about vaccinations but only go to the time and expense (as they are not insured) of getting their kids vaccinated, as they have to for their kids to go to school Combined those groups are a significant percentage of parents [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-scrapping-their-childhood-vaccine-mandates/1022716.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-scrapping-their-childhood-vaccine-mandates/1022716.md?page=3)