Florida is not banning Covid-19 jabs for being bioweapons

There have been some recent social media posts claiming that the US state of Florida will ban Covid vaccines.

One Facebook user posted a video last month and said: “It’s Happening! COVID Vaccines getting banned in Florida for beings proven Bio Weapons.”[sic]

And an Instagram user also posted the video and an image of a tweet claiming “Florida to ban MRNA vaccines as credible evidence of ‘biological weapons”[sic].

But this is not quite right. It seems this claim is based on county Republican party members in Florida passing a resolution calling for the state’s governor Ron DeSantis to ban mRNA Covid vaccines.

A video attached to both posts seems to be a broadcast news report from Florida-based channel CBS12 News reporting that the Brevard County Republican Executive Committee (BREC) had written a letter calling on “Governor DeSantis and the state legislature to prohibit the sale and distribution of COVID-19 injections and all related injections in the state of Florida, and for the state Attorney General to immediately seize all COVID-19 injections and mRNA injections in the state of Florida”. 

The letter also reportedly claimed that “strong and credible evidence has recently been revealed that COVID-19 and COVID-19 injections are biological and technological weapons”. But the news report does not cite any of this evidence.

The news report, dated 13 July, also adds that members of the BREC adopted a resolution, calling on the governor to make the COVID-19 vaccines illegal and to send its letter to state leaders.

But, CBS12 News says the letter is “simply a request—not a demand”. 

A separate CBS News Miami report from February on a similar “ban the jab” resolution passed by the Lee County Republican party said that “[Governor] DeSantis can just ignore it if he chooses”.

Fact checkers at Snopes also looked at the move by Lee County Republicans and said this resolution “carried no legislative power”.

So while Florida Republican party members have called for Covid jabs to be banned, their calls are not legally binding, and there appear to be no plans to ban Covid-19 vaccines in the state.

Vaccine misinformation can harm health, as people may make decisions based on false claims. We have previously written about false claims of countries banning Covid vaccines and classifying them as a bioweapon, as well as many other false claims about Covid and vaccines. 

Image courtesy of Hakan Nural