PHOTO: Courtesy of WLUK
(WTAQ-WLUK) — State health officials are recommending all Wisconsinites, ages six months and older, get the COVID-19 vaccine.
It’s a contradiction to federal recommendations of much more limited age groups.
The announcement comes after Governor Tony Evers signed an executive order aimed at ensuring all Wisconsinites have access to vaccines. Evers’ executive order directs the state Department of Health Services to monitor medical evidence and guidance on COVID-19 vaccines.
Evers says more access to vaccines will save lives.
“If you’re not vaccinated, you’re going to end up, you know, your chances are more that you’re going to end up ill and maybe seriously ill,” Evers said.
His order comes after Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and Governor Ron DeSantis push to end all vaccine mandates, including for kids in school. Ladapo said getting vaccinated is a personal choice.
“That is a moral, ethical universe. Not this nonsense where people who don’t know you are telling you what to put in your temple, the temple of your body,” Ladapo said.
On Tuesday, the Wisconsin DHS backed Evers’ executive order by continuing to recommend the COVID-19 vaccine to anyone six months and older.
The order allows the DHS to increase vaccine access at pharmacies across the Badger State. It also lets people get vaccinated without requiring a prescription.
“Our goal here in Wisconsin is to ensure that health care providers can use their expertise and their compassion to talk with their patients and help them make the best recommendations that they can, to protect every person’s individual health needs,” DHS Chief Medical Officer Dr. Ryan Westergaard said.
The executive order also comes after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave guidance to the CDC to stop recommending the COVID-19 vaccine to healthy kids and pregnant women. Currently, the FDA only recommends people 65 and older and those with underlying health conditions get the shot.
Kennedy said the COVID pandemic and vaccines were politicized.
“We were lied to about everything. We were lied to about natural immunity. We were lied to about, you know, we were told again and again the vaccines would prevent transmission. They prevent infection. It wasn’t true. They knew it from the start it wasn’t true, because that’s what the animal studies in the clinical trial showed,” Kennedy said.
Evers called the new federal age recommendations ridiculous. He hopes his order and the DHS’ recommendations will provide better vaccine access and less confusion in Wisconsin as we head into flu season.
“To see that science is being not followed in this area can be dangerous, and so we believe it’s the right way to approach it, by following science,” Evers said.
Wisconsin is the latest to join a growing number of states trying to increase access to COVID-19 vaccines.
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