{"id":10446,"date":"2021-04-30T11:43:06","date_gmt":"2021-04-30T15:43:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=10446"},"modified":"2021-04-30T11:44:35","modified_gmt":"2021-04-30T15:44:35","slug":"state-surgeon-general-says-fully-vaccinated-floridians-can-go-maskless-in-public-despite-cdc-warning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2021\/04\/30\/state-surgeon-general-says-fully-vaccinated-floridians-can-go-maskless-in-public-despite-cdc-warning\/","title":{"rendered":"State surgeon general says fully-vaccinated Floridians can go maskless in public, despite CDC warning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Floridians who have completed their vaccination against COVID-19 can stop&nbsp;wearing masks in&nbsp;public, Florida Health Secretary and Surgeon General Scott Rivkees said in a recently issued health advisory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Florida-Health-Secretary-and-Surgeon-General-Scott-Rivkees.jpg?resize=341%2C192&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10447\" width=\"341\" height=\"192\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Florida-Health-Secretary-and-Surgeon-General-Scott-Rivkees.jpg?w=640&amp;ssl=1 640w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Florida-Health-Secretary-and-Surgeon-General-Scott-Rivkees.jpg?resize=300%2C169&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 341px) 100vw, 341px\" \/><figcaption>Florida Health Secretary and Surgeon General Scott Rivkees<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thursday night&#8217;s advisory&nbsp;comes when only&nbsp;34% of all Floridians have been fully vaccinated, and days after a recommendation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that&nbsp;fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear masks outdoors unless they are in a crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The state order&nbsp;goes against CDC direction that &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theledger.com\/story\/news\/health\/2021\/04\/27\/cdc-guidelines-say-vaccinated-people-dont-need-wear-masks-outside\/7395850002\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">fully vaccinated people should continue to wear a mask<\/a>&#8221; at indoor public spaces because the vaccination status of others or whether they are at a higher risk of&nbsp;COVID-19 infection of others is unknown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to a news release, Rivkees&nbsp;considered the following factors in deciding to lift the mask requirement for those who are fully vaccinated:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Nearly nine million individuals have been vaccinated in Florida.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Scientific studies show that the COVID-19 vaccines protect individuals from COVID-19, and dramatically diminish hospitalizations and deaths caused by the virus.<\/li><li>Continuing COVID-19 restrictions on individuals with no end in sight, including the long-term use of face coverings and withdrawal from social and recreational gatherings, pose a risk of adverse and unintended consequences.<\/li><li>Florida has a sufficient supply of COVID-19 vaccines to provide an opportunity for every eligible Floridian who wants to be vaccinated.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Without mentioning masks specifically, the state order rescinds previous public health advisories requiring face coverings wherever social distancing wasn&#8217;t possible, both indoors and outdoors. It also allows folks to attend social and recreational gatherings, except in limited circumstances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The new order further encourages all state government offices to conduct business in person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Order also addresses vaccine availability<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The order also expands those eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine to non-Floridians who are in the state to provide&nbsp;goods or services for the benefit of residents and visitors alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;This includes, among other professions, farm workers, construction workers and those working in Florida\u2019s tourism industry,&#8221; Health Department spokesman Jason Mahon said. &#8220;These individuals do not need to prove Florida residency to be vaccinated in our state.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even before the policy shift, there had been easing around residency requirements at mass vaccination events that served thousands of Florida farmworkers before they began heading north this month. Health workers&nbsp;accepted a variety of forms of identification and found ways to reach people who had none.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe worked with the people who were bringing the vaccines, and they understood that our community doesn\u2019t always have that,\u201d Nely Rodriguez, a Coalition of Immokalee staff worker,&nbsp;said in early April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Floridians who have completed their vaccination against COVID-19 can stop&nbsp;wearing masks in&nbsp;public, Florida Health Secretary and Surgeon General Scott Rivkees said in a recently issued health advisory. Thursday night&#8217;s advisory&nbsp;comes&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[123],"class_list":["post-10446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-state-surgeon-general"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}