Florida Health Official Put On Leave After Urging Staff to Get Vaccine

Florida’s top public health official in Orlando has been placed on administrative leave after sending an email to his employees noting their lackluster coronavirus vaccination rates and urging them to get the shots.

The official — Dr. Raul Pino, the administrator for the Florida Department of Health’s office in Orange County — sent the email on Jan. 4, in the thick of a surge in cases caused by the Omicron variant.

In the email, Dr. Pino said that he had asked a staff member to pull out the vaccination rates for the office, and that the figures were alarming: Of the office’s 568 employees, only 219 — fewer than half — had completed a full vaccination series, and just 77 of them had received a booster shot, a number he called “SUPER LOW.”

“I am sorry, but in the absence of reasonable and real reasons, it is irresponsible not to be vaccinated,” Dr. Pino wrote in the email, which was first reported by WFTV, the local ABC News affiliate. He called the office’s vaccination rate “pathetic.”

“I have a hard time understanding how we can be in public health and not practice it,” he added.

Jeremy T. Redfern, the press secretary for the Department of Health, confirmed in a statement that Dr. Pino was on administrative leave, and that the department was “conducting an inquiry to determine if any laws were broken in this case.”

The decision to get vaccinated “is a personal medical choice that should be made free from coercion and mandates from employers,” Mr. Redfern wrote.

Florida has enacted a law banning Covid vaccine mandates, including for government employees. Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has raised his national political profile by curtailing virus restrictions of all kinds in the state.

It is unclear whether Dr. Pino was placed on leave for urging employees to get vaccinated, for compiling their vaccination status, or for both. The Department of Health did not respond to specific questions about the matter, including whether Dr. Pino’s leave is paid or unpaid. Dr. Pino did not respond to calls seeking comment.

In Florida, local public health offices are centrally run by the state Department of Health, not by individual counties as in many other states.

Dr. Pino, a former commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Public Health, was appointed to head the Orange County health office in 2019. He is Cuban-American and speaks Spanish as well as English, an asset in multicultural Orlando.

Dr. Pino has been a fixture at regular news briefings updating Orange County residents about the Covid-19 pandemic, making him one of the most visible public health officials in the state. His counterparts in other large counties have tended to appear mostly at county commission meetings or to avoid the spotlight altogether.

The news briefings in Orlando have been organized by Mayor Jerry L. Demings, a Democrat, who has criticized Mr. DeSantis for impeding local governments from taking actions to limit the spread of the virus. A spokeswoman for Mr. Demings announced on Wednesday that the mayor had tested positive.

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