Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis intends to unveil a series of measures in the state's next legislative session, designed to bolster the residents' protections from COVID-19 mandates.
During a recent appearance on Fox News, DeSantis teased his proposals to the Florida legislature — a potential ban of vaccine and mask requirements in schools for students, and for businesses attempting to hire or fire personnel based on an individual's vaccine status.
Florida's regular legislative session will convene April 10.
"It used to be textbook pandemic preparedness that you keep things going," DeSantis told the "Unfiltered With Dan Bongino" program. "That's what really we tried to do in Florida. Having kids in school was really important, but then what we did, I think better than anyone, is we protected our citizens against this vax being used as a weapon.
"We banned vaccine passports almost two years ago, and I think the powers that be from Biden on down, they wanted to marginalize people from society if you didn't take this," DeSantis continued. "They wanted to deny you the ability to earn a living if you didn't take it, and they wanted kids to not even be able to go to school if you didn't take it."
Last month, the Florida Supreme Court in December granted a DeSantis petition to have a grand jury investigate any wrongdoing by COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers.
In 2021, DeSantis countered President Joe Biden's COVID-19 vaccine mandate among all federal workers and contractors in the executive branch, along with domestic companies with more than 100 employees.
"We protected Floridians across the board, their jobs, their education, and their ability to participate in society," said DeSantis, a favorite to win the Republican National Committee's presidential nomination in 2024, along with former President Donald Trump. "That has preserved freedom in our state, but I think it helped preserve freedom in other states."
DeSantis continued: "For this coming legislative session, we're going to make all those protections permanent. We're also going to add protections so that people, you can't be fired for your job, but some businesses are treating people differently based on whether they've had an mRNA booster."
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