Commissioner Wants County To Ease Up On COVID-19 Mandates

HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FL ? As Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, touts the state's 3 percent coronavirus positivity rate and announced plans to convene a special legislative session Nov. 15 to protect Florida employees from President Joe Biden's vaccine mandates, at least one Hillsborough County commission wants to follow his example.

At Wednesday's county commission meeting, Stacy White, a Republican, said he thinks it's time for the county to relax its coronavirus mandates including the requirement that new county employees provide proof of vaccination and existing employees who have not been vaccinated submit a negative coronavirus test each month.

As an added incentive, in mid-September, Wise increased the reward for employees who got vaccinated from $50 and one floating holiday to $500 and two extra days off.

Wise's decision to require vaccinations or monthly testing came as the county's coronavirus rate reached record levels over the summer due to the introduction of the more contagious delta variant. Hundreds of employees were either out sick with the virus or in quarantine.

Since the pandemic began, Wise said the county lost nearly 45,000 work hours.

After offering the financial incentive, the number of the county's 5,000 employees who were vaccinated rose from 51 percent to more than 60 percent.

It's those 40 percent who have chosen not to be vaccinated that concern White.

"I've been hearing of a lot of concerns from county employees about the COVID testing," he said. "I know a lot of them have been sent home, and they're either being asked to use PTO (paid time off) or, I don't even know what the case is if they don't have any PTO remaining."

Now that it looks as if the surge is over, "I'd like to see some of these practices wind down," White said. "I know it's the county administrator's call, but I can empathize with what we're hearing from some of these employees."

Hillsborough County went from a high of 1,698 positive cases in a single day on Aug. 26 to 129 cases on Oct. 28, giving the county a positivity rate of 3.5 percent. On Aug. 26, 169 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in Hillsborough County, according to the county's dashboard. That's been reduced to 30 hospitalizations as of Oct. 28.

"We're in a good place right now with COVID. I don't know if another variant is going to rear its ugly head, but I'd certainly like to see some of these practices begin to wind down," White said, adding that the county will face a labor shortage if it continues to "wield a heavy hand."

White also urged the county commission to drop its mask mandate at commission meetings.

"I think it's long past due, and I see other government bodies that are conducting their meetings maskless," he said. "Let the people see that we as a board are ready to move forward and return to a sense of normalcy."

Commissioner Kimberly Overman, a Democrat, said the county made the mistake of acting too hastily in May when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention relaxed its COVID-19 recommendation.

"We found ourselves with a significant spike, the highest one we've ever seen, in July," she said. "I understand everybody's tired of all of this, but we're doing something that's working and actually reducing the incidence of people that are becoming ill."

She said now isn't the time to let down their guard, especially in light of the fact that Hillsborough County Fire Rescue buried one of its own on Wednesday after he contracted coronavirus in the line of duty.

"I don't think we're done with this, and I think sending the message that we should stop doing what's working is a dangerous precedent," she said. "It takes time for behaviors to change and for a virus to wane in the community spread, so while I do appreciate the desire to kind of go back to normal, trust me, I would love to see that, we're not there yet, in my opinion."

She noted that only days ago, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration finally gave its approval to vaccinate children age 5 to 11.

On Friday, the FDA authorized the emergency use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children age 5 to 11. The FDA said immune responses of children in that age group were comparable to people age 16 to 25 and studies showed the vaccine was 90.7 percent effective in preventing COVID-19 in children 5 to 11.

Overman said this means that children will be able to spend the holidays with elderly grandparents and other vulnerable relatives for the first time in more than a year.

"I appreciate the desire to stop putting people in difficult choices but, at the end of the day, loving thy neighbor is the rule of thumb that I live by," she said.

County commission chairwoman Pat Kemp said she appreciates the difficult position Wise was in when she laid down the coronavirus restrictions for employees.

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"It's been a tough job for the county administrator and staff as they faced that," she said. "I think they've dealt with it with a lot of intelligence, data and care for the employees and community."

Because the Florida Department of Health stopped reporting daily coronavirus statistics in June, Kemp said many in the community were oblivious to the seriousness of the crisis the county faced.

"I don't think the community at large realize the mountain we climbed," she said. "We weren't getting information from the state of Florida about how bad the infection was. It was disconcerting to do things in the dark. We had the greatest number of deaths, the greatest number of hospitalizations and the greatest spread during that period. Now we have a lot of orphans in the state of Florida."

Nevertheless, White said he'd like county staff to produce "some hard data" on how major private sector companies in the county are handling this situation.

"I think you would find that very few of them are requiring this sort of action on the part of their employees," he said. "I think it's wrong that we're continuing to require our employees to submit to this testing and to face ramifications if they don't submit. I think this pandemic is very close to being behind us. I'm already reading reports in the mainstream media that indicate that we're on the cusp of this becoming an endemic, no longer a pandemic."

Wise told commissioners that her decision to continue the employee mandates for now "is based on a lot of information and a lot of data and a lot of thoughtfulness. "It's true the cases have been declining, but we're doing this to protect the employees and their families."

She said she has formed a committee of employees from various county departments who collect data and advise her based on vaccination rates, rate of infection and other factors.

"We are not going to be masking forever, and we are getting to the point where we will make some new decisions, but those decisions will be thoughtful ones," Wise said.

However, if DeSantis has his way, both public and private sector employers will be forced to eliminate vaccination and testing mandates.

?Your right to earn a living should not be contingent upon COVID shots,? he said, announcing that Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody has filed suit on his behalf against the Biden administration for requiring federal employees and those that receive federal funding or contracts to mandate vaccinations for employees.

?In Florida, we believe that the decision whether or not to get a COVID shot is a choice based on individual circumstances, so we are litigating against the Biden administration and will be passing legislation in this special session to protect Florida jobs and protect parents? rights when it comes to masking and quarantines," DeSantis said during a news conference Friday.

?Just months ago, Joe Biden was saying that it wouldn?t be appropriate or lawful for the federal government to mandate these COVID shots. But now we have somehow gone from 15 days to slow the spread to three jabs to keep your job," DeSantis said. "The federal government is exceeding their power and it is important for us to take a stand."

Florida is the first state to bring legal action against the Biden administration for its federal contractor vaccine mandate.

See related stories:

• Tampa Mayor Mandates That All City Employees Be Vaccinated
• Vaccine Mandates Would Put Thousands Out Of Work: Gov. DeSantis
• Tampa Bay Hospitals Respond To Biden Order To Vaccinate Employees
• Gov. Calls For Special Session To Stop Worker Vaccine Mandates
• Pinellas Employees Who Get Vaccinated Will Get A $750 Bonus