Florida health official put on 2-month leave after urging staff to get vaccine

Enlarge / Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a press conference before newly appointed state Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo at Neo City Academy in Kissimmee, Florida. (credit: Getty | SOPA images)

Florida is allowing its top public health official in Orlando to return to work after a two-month suspension related to an email he sent to his staff noting their abysmal COVID-19 vaccination rate and urging them to get vaccinated.

Dr. Raul Pino, the health administrator for Florida's Orange County, sent the email to public health employees on January 4 as the state was seeing a surge of COVID-19 cases amid the omicron wave of the pandemic. The email noted that less than half of the 568 employees at the county's public health office were fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Only 77 of them had gotten a booster shot, Pino added. He called the staff's vaccination rate "pathetic" and wrote that it was "irresponsible" not to be vaccinated at that point.

I have a hard time understanding how we can be in public health and not practice it," he wrote, according to Click Orlando.

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