Last week, Dr. Raul Pino, the top public health official in Orange County, Fla., was placed on administrative leave by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office.
In the middle of a pandemic. Just a few weeks after Orange County hit its record high for covid-19 infections as hospitalization rates climbed. This is when DeSantis decided to bench a trusted, passionate voice for public health in Florida’s fifth-largest and fastest-growing county.
Throughout his tenure, Pino has been a staunch advocate for Central Florida’s struggling low-income residents as well as its fast-growing minority population. He’s been adamant about making health information accessible to native Spanish-speaking residents, and he’s built critical partnerships with local leaders that expanded the Health Department’s reach.
You’d think the governor’s office would want to keep someone like that on the job.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
You’d be wrong.
Pino was sidelined after sending out an email chiding Health Department workers for a terrible vaccination rate. The doctor’s dismay makes perfect sense: Vaccination may not be as effective against newer covid-19 variants as public health officials hoped, but it reduces rates of hospitalization and death. Pino added that he was worried that unvaccinated employees might become “vectors” between the patients and their own families.
It’s the kind of thing that Pino is paid to worry about — especially the day after the Health Department canceled prenatal clinic appointments because too many workers were out sick.
So why the suspension? A Department of Health official gave reporters from the Orlando Sentinel and other media outlets a brief statement: “The decision to get vaccinated is a personal medical choice that should be made free from coercion and mandates from employers.”
That’s not what the U.S. Supreme Court thinks. In a Jan. 13 ruling, the court upheld vaccine requirements for health care workers. “Ensuring that providers take steps to avoid transmitting a dangerous virus to their patients is consistent with the fundamental principle of the medical profession: first, do no harm,” the court said, quoting a 2021 ruling that it would be the “very opposite of efficient and effective administration for a facility that is supposed to make people well to make them sick with COVID–19.”
Florida’s official stance — as decreed by DeSantis and approved by the Legislature — is that state Health Department officials can’t enforce that mandate. But Pino’s email didn’t order anyone to get vaccinated, and it was free of any threat or coercion. He simply said it was irresponsible not to be vaccinated, and he’s right. He said it was pathetic that fewer than half of Health Department employees were vaccinated, and it is.
A few days after suspending Pino, state Health Department officials released a vague and unsubstantiated statement referencing the privacy of employee health records for the Orange County agency, and referring the case to the department’s inspector general.
Let’s call this what it looks like: A back-dated attempt to smear Pino and delay resolution in this case. It’s hard to believe the state doesn’t know how to quickly search Pino’s email to determine whether he requested or received any individual vaccination records for employees. It’s even harder to believe that — had they found such evidence — Health Department officials wouldn’t have triumphantly brandished it days ago.
So here we are: The Department of Health’s Orange County operation is without a leader. County officials say they’ve had no communication from the state about an interim replacement.
And as the scariest, most prolonged health crisis to hit Orange County in the past 100 years rages on, a trusted, rational voice has been silenced.
It makes no sense — unless you accept the fact that Florida’s leaders care more about saving face than saving lives. We don’t want to believe that, but DeSantis and his team leave us little choice.