Florida Department of Health Orange County chief Dr Raul Pino, the state’s top health official for the Orlando area, has been placed on administrative leave for the thoughtcrime of promoting COVID-19 vaccines, the Orlando Sentinel reports. Pino had been the subject of a complaint over a January 4th email he wrote about low vax rates among health department employees. “I am sorry but in the absence of reasonable and real reasons it is irresponsible not to be vaccinated,” Pino wrote in the email. “We have been at this for two years, we were the first to give vaccines to the masses, we have done more than 300,000 and we are not even at 50% pathetic.”
“As the decision to get vaccinated is a personal medical choice that should be made free from coercion and mandates from employers, the employee in question has been placed on administrative leave, and the Florida Department of Health is conducting an inquiry to determine if any laws were broken,” Florida DOH spokesworm Weesam Khoury told the Sentinel on Tuesday. “The Department is committed to upholding all laws, including the ban on vaccine mandates for government employees and will take appropriate action once additional information is known.”