{"id":17311,"date":"2021-11-18T14:13:38","date_gmt":"2021-11-18T19:13:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=17311"},"modified":"2021-11-18T14:13:47","modified_gmt":"2021-11-18T19:13:47","slug":"florida-has-empowered-floridians-and-parents-to-make-their-own-healthcare-decisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2021\/11\/18\/florida-has-empowered-floridians-and-parents-to-make-their-own-healthcare-decisions\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida has empowered Floridians and parents to make their own healthcare decisions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Today, Governor Ron DeSantis was joined by Florida Speaker Chris Sprowls and Senate President Wilton Simpson to sign legislation that will protect Floridians from losing their jobs due to COVID-19 vaccine mandates and protect parents\u2019 rights to make healthcare decisions for students. The bills were passed through a Special Session of the Florida Legislature and are effective upon the Governor\u2019s signature. The legislation signed today is the strongest pro-freedom, anti-mandate action taken by any state in the nation. Read about the legislation&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/r20.rs6.net\/tn.jsp?f=001FlmvI_L2WEH6SV0f1i7gH9r4QTxQ4tr66ld2bc93TT_vePQcWKH4lWPhS7BB5CJyQ2YhNS4CY7e0rLXFdM5wGwe7WINwLL6bzUUzv5cnWt723z2rgSdRYKD5u_JkAq6B1zloMV5SRb_r2IhQVbZfP_3c5Ev3eQ_OQ7tLO2E8_FVUq7HYydKPSVVrJQMsZIISNqRUv6Nyv8oFaT6eDfBpVq3CJ3T2_gG4&amp;c=dW1jGsHK25Hyp61sBYVEpCpNjOaOI9_yZRkDyC8k-kRvz2LfcdmHtA==&amp;ch=BkBttzDUNqR7yLDO_PNKqWDh92f9wUsMpE_F42t7YblxxX9HXhA_aQ==\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">HERE<\/a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"555\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/DeSantis.jpg?resize=1024%2C555&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-830\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/DeSantis.jpg?resize=1024%2C555&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/DeSantis.jpg?resize=300%2C163&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/DeSantis.jpg?resize=768%2C416&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/DeSantis.jpg?w=1160&amp;ssl=1 1160w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In Florida, effective immediately:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2713 Private Employer COVID-19 vaccine mandates are prohibited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Employees can choose from numerous exemptions, including but not limited to, health or religious concerns; pregnancy or anticipated future pregnancy; and past recovery from COVID-19.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Employees can choose to opt for periodic testing or PPE as an exemption.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Employers must cover the costs of testing and PPE exemptions for employees.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2713 Employers who violate these employee health protections will be fined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Small businesses (99 employees or less) will face $10,000 per employee violation.<\/li><li>Medium and big businesses will face $50,000 per employee violation.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2713 Government entities may not require COVID-19 vaccinations of anyone, including employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2713 Educational institutions may not require students to be COVID-19 vaccinated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2713 School districts may not have school face mask policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2713 School districts may not quarantine healthy students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2713 Students and parents may sue violating school districts and recover costs and attorney\u2019s fees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI told Floridians that we would protect their jobs and today we made that the law,\u201d&nbsp;<strong>said Governor Ron DeSantis.<\/strong>&nbsp;\u201cNobody should lose their job due to heavy-handed COVID mandates and we had a responsibility to protect the livelihoods of the people of Florida. I\u2019m thankful to the Florida Legislature for joining me in standing up for freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today, Governor Ron DeSantis was joined by Florida Speaker Chris Sprowls and Senate President Wilton Simpson to sign legislation that will protect Floridians from losing their jobs due to COVID-19&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":830,"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":[1755],"class_list":["post-17311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-florida-has-empowered-floridians-and-parents-to-make-their-own-healthcare-decisions"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17311","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=17311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}