Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis is against vaccine passports and will not impose such measures in the state of Florida. His remarks came a just days after New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the rollout of a pilot vaccine passport program.
On Thursday, in a press conference, DeSantis expressed his strong opposition to vaccine passports and the requirement of a negative coronavirus test for people to access public venues.
“I just want to make very clear, in Florida, we are not doing any vaccine passports,” DeSantis said. “I think it’s a bad idea. And so that will not happen. And so folks should get vaccinated if they want to obviously provide that. But under no circumstances will the state be asking you to show proof of vaccination.”
The governor also doesn’t believe private businesses should be requiring vaccine passports.
“And I don’t think private companies should be doing that either,” added DeSantis. “So we’re going to look in, to see what we need to do to be able to make sure we’re protecting Floridians. But I do think it would be a big problem to start going down the road of vaccine passports.”
DeSantis’ strong opposition to vaccine passports appears to be inspired by his desire to push back against the encroachment on civil liberties that have taken place over the last year.
“You have some of these states saying to go to a sporting event, you have to show either a negative test or a vaccine proof. I think you just gotta make decisions. If you want to go to an event go to an event if you don’t don’t, but to be requiring people to provide all this proof,” said DeSantis. “That’s not how you get society back to normal. So we’re rejecting any vaccine passports here in the state of Florida.”
Meanwhile, New York state residents might soon be required to present a vaccine passport before they enter public venues, most of which have remained closed since the pandemic started. Gov. Cuomo announced a “pilot program” for vaccine passports called “Excelsior Pass” that people will be required to present “in order to enter sports arenas, theaters, and businesses.”
