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- [Rob] Coming up next as the nation marks the one year anniversary of the start of the COVID crisis we'll get some answers about what to expect next.

The governor cancels local fines against people and businesses that failed to follow COVID safety rules.

Were some of the vaccines distributed at Manatee County as a way to curry political favor?

And we'll track some of the bills that are quickly making their way through the legislative session.

Our guests are Republican State Senator Joe Gruters Democratic State Senator Janet Cruz, Jessica De Leon of the Bradenton Herald, and public health expert.

Dr. Donna Peterson, all coming up on Florida This Week.

- Welcome back this week marks the one-year anniversary of the COVID crisis in the US.

- [Reporter] When it broke out last year the then president downplayed its severity - Now the virus that we're talking about having to do, you know a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat.

Because of all we've done the risk to the American people remains very low.

People die from the flu, and this is very unusual and it is a little bit different but in some ways it's easier.

And in some ways it's a little bit tougher - [Reporter] Since then the diseases killed more than a half million Americans and more than 32,000 Floridians, at least a hundred million doses of the COVID vaccine have been administered already in the US.

Florida stands in the middle when it comes to the death rate per a hundred thousand residents.

The death rate here is slightly worse than in California which took a tougher stance on lockdowns.

Florida's death rate did do better than New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts but did worse than 23 other states including Hawaii, Vermont, Alaska, and Maine.

And this week Governor Ron DeSantis filed an executive order that cancels any fines that were imposed by local governments, on people and businesses who ignored COVID-19 restrictions.

So that means that bars and restaurants that ignored safety restrictions are off the hook.

And there were new revelations on how wealthy communities in Manatee County were given access to extra supplies of the COVID vaccine.

More on that in a moment - The governor said this week that Floridians and 60 and older will be eligible for a coronavirus vaccine starting Monday.

And he added that soon, younger people will also be eligible.

Here to talk about vaccines is Dr. Donna Peterson, a professor of public health at USF and Dean of the college of public health.

She also leads the USF Coronavirus task force and Dr. Peterson, welcome back - Rob.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Thank you.

- Great to have you here.

So let me ask you about the vaccines.

If someone has both vaccines can they resume life as normal?

Can they go back to restaurants and indoors and movie theaters and bars?

- Well, the importance of vaccine in the COVID-19 pandemic is that we're trying to achieve herd immunity and push this virus down so that it's not continuing to infect people.

And so people getting the vaccine really helps our entire community get over the hill.

So if you've gotten the vaccine now, thank you you are doing your part.

And it is certainly safer for you to be around other people who've received the vaccine, and it's certainly safer for you to resume some of the activities that you have missed but we strongly encourage people while we're still dealing with the virus in our community, to maintain that social distancing, keep a face mask on when you're out in public.

But certainly people with the vaccine have much lower risk right now but until we get fully beyond the other side of the virus we're not fully normal yet.

- So the followup to that is can I, if I have both vaccines might I be an unknown carrier of the virus to somebody else and inadvertently infect somebody?

- Well, that's what we're continuing to examine.

We believe it is possible for people with the vaccine to become infected with the virus and perhaps transmit it to other people.

We're not entirely sure of the extent to which that may happen but like everything else with this virus we've been learning in real time.

And so as more people get the vaccine and as more people continue to perhaps be tested for the virus, then we'll know.

As we improve our ability to test for full immunity we will know, but right now we're not entirely sure.

We believe that vaccine is protective but we believe that some people may become infected and could without their knowledge pass it onto others.

- [Rob] So it's better to be safe right now and not assume that that you're virus free.

Even if you've had the vaccine.

One of the questions there are all these variants of the virus.

There's the UK variant, there's a South African variant.

Do these new variants, varieties of the virus are when someone gets the vaccine are we protected against these new varieties?

- So we are watching that one very very carefully.

It looks like both the Moderna and the Pfizer, That's the one we have the most experience with, seems to be protective against the variant from the UK.

The U- that variant seems to be pretty present here in Florida.

It's we're not sure yet how many of the other the South African or the Brazilian have appeared here in the state.

And we're a little concerned about those because they seem to have have some different properties that may mean that the vaccine is not quite as effective against them.

But this is partly a race against time.

So the more people that get the vaccine the fewer that are susceptible to the virus at all and it may make it possible for us to outrun either the Brazilian variant or the South African one even if they are more dangerous.

So we're really hopeful that we can get ahead of them.

- Do you have any concerns that we might see a spike a respike of the disease?

Because I think people are getting a little bit more relaxed.

I think government is getting a little bit more lax especially state government.

Are you concerned that we could be headed for another spike?

- Well, we're concerned enough that we've continued to issue the same warnings the same encouragements that we've been saying all along until we get on the other side of the virus people need to continue to follow the measures, face coverings, distance, stay home if if, if you don't feel well.

There is some concern that because the virus is now here, that it's in our community that some people have gotten the fact that the, the, the the vaccine I meant, I meant to say just because the vaccine is here in our community it doesn't on its own fight the virus.

We have to get the vaccine and then we become less susceptible to the virus.

That's how we help push this virus down.

So it's very important that everyone stay the course probably at least through May.

And then we may be able to relax.

That's our hope.

- So, so, and just in the 20 seconds that we have left do you think that life might return to normal by May?

- Maybe not fully normal by May.

We're looking maybe at August if we're lucky, July but certainly in terms of not relaxing.

And we're really asking people, please just keep following the distancing, the masking, stay home when you don't feel well, at least through May.

That should allow us time to get more people to have the vaccine and to continue to push this virus down.

- Dr. Donna Peterson, thanks for coming back.

Great to see you.

- Thanks, Rob.

Great to see you.

- Text messages released this week show that Manatee County Commissioner Vanessa Baugh and a wealthy developer discussed the political benefits for Governor Ron DeSantis when they set up a pop-up vaccine site in their gate, in a gated neighborhood.

This has prompted bi-partisan calls for an investigation, and Jessica De Leon is a law enforcement reporter for the Bradenton Herald.

She's been covering this story, Jessica welcome back to the show.

- Thank you for having me again - So, already there have been calls by the Agriculture Commissioner, Charlie Crist, the Congressman Gary Farmer in the state legislature.

A lot of people are calling for a federal investigation.

What's the latest?

- Well, just today we published online the latest development, which is a federal complaint that has been filed with the US Department of Health and Human Services, alleging discriminatory and fraudulent practices with the distribution of vaccines in the state and specifically names, the Lakewood Ranch vaccine event and Governor DeSantis - [Rob] Who filed the complaint?

- It was filed by a gentleman by the name of Matthew Issman.

He's a retired law enforcement officer whose own HOA had reached out to the department of health earlier on in the vaccination process about wanting a vaccine event in their community.

And they were told that you cannot have a site just for your community, it has to be open for the public.

And then it just so happens that he saw what transpired here in Manatee County where his daughter happens to also live in as a teacher and has now been able to get vaccinated.

- There, there had been a random list in Manatee County.

There had been a way that vaccines were going to be distributed in, in Manatee County.

When, when commissioner Baugh got involved, what happened to the random list that people were signed up on?

- Well, that list was bypassed, or I should say they use utilized that system and asked directed staff essentially to pull people who had registered their home addresses as the, these two specific zip codes of Manatee County which happened to be two of the wealthiest zip codes and who have been affected at a lesser degree by the coronavirus than other areas of the community - Where some people then bumped.

I mean, some people who were expected to get the vaccine pretty soon, were they bumped when this pop-up site for the wealthy communities was created?

- Well, they just didn't have an opportunity to get vaccinated which angered a lot of the community.

Appointments were postponed which just further fueled the anger in the community.

But essentially this VIP list also that Vanessa created, put herself, Rex Jensen the Lakewood Ranch developer, his father and her former neighbors that she does business with, also ahead of the line.

And it was a request basically to be included for appointments and many people feel that she misused her position to get herself and others ahead of the line by creating this VIP list - Well, Jessica De Leon, thank you for coming back on Florida This Week and and we hope you come back.

- Thank you for having me.

- State Senator Joe Gruters represents District 23 in Sarasota.

He's also the chair of the Florida Republican party.

Previously he's been the co-chair of the Donald Trump presidential campaign here in Florida, and Senator Joe Gruters, welcome back.

Great to see you.

- Hey, thanks so much for having me on again.

- The Democrats, as you know, are calling for a federal investigation into the way vaccines have been distributed in Manatee County.

We now have some text messages indicating that the vaccines were distributed in a way to help the governor's reelection campaign.

What do you think about the call for a federal investigation?

- [Senator Gruters] Well, those text messages, number one, have nothing to do with the governor, other than the fact that he was coming to that community.

That's with, was between the County commissioner, and I guess one of her friends but nothing to do with the governor.

I think they got, go ahead and do a federal investigation because hopefully they'll give them an award for putting seniors first and making sure that we can distribute it as far and as wide as we have, you know, all these different pop-up sites.

A lot of them have gone to, I think out of the first 15 I think six or seven were in Broward, in West Palm.

They've done lots of church visits and, and, and and minority community focused events.

This is about getting the vaccine to in to as many people as fast as they possibly can.

The governor has done an outstanding job.

I'm super happy with his efforts overall.

And I'm just so glad that he's our governor in this time.

So go ahead, bring on whatever investigation Democrats could do whatever they want, but it's going to end up leading to the governor getting more and more accolades because compared to his peers and compared to where other states are Florida is by far leading the effort in this aspect.

And of course we've been been allowed to, that we've had freedom and liberty here almost since the beginning.

So I'm very grateful that we have governor Ron DeSantis, a freedom loving governor as our leader here in Florida - Well speaking of the governor, he, this week he moved to erase all the fines that local businesses and people have accumulated for violating the COVID safety regulations.

Does that give a free pass now to businesses to say you can just open up the doors.

We don't care about safety regulations and you know, and, and if, if the Republican party believes that local government knows best why would the governor interfere with the counties and cities that are imposing these fines?

- Well, a great question.

And from the beginning of this pandemic, the Governor's you know, one of his strategies has been has been decentralized decision-making from the standpoint of allowing local governments to make some of these decisions on what works best for their communities because not every part of Florida was the same.

And I think he's been he's been Riley wildly recognized from that standpoint.

Now, as it comes to fines and penalties, listen there's a lot of people out there that are just trying to earn a living and trying to provide for their families.

And it's hard to fault somebody trying to to go out there and earn a living.

And it's a unfortunate that some sometimes fines were given out, but I agree with the governor's decision now that we're heading toward and we see the light at the end of the tunnel in terms of this pandemic let's go ahead and get rid of all these fines.

Let's not penalize people who were trying to, like I said provide for their families, keep a roof over their head keep food in their children's mouths.

And let's try to do what's in the best interest of this great state, and that's continue to move us forward.

- But spring break is coming up.

We're going to see people packing into the bars and the bar owners are going to say, we don't care.

You can pack in because now we don't have to pay a fine - Well, hopefully the people that are concerned about getting the vacc- about getting the virus will stay home and the people that have fewer concerns hopefully they follow the social distancing distancing guidelines that are out there.

But at the end of the day, people are going to have to make their own decisions on what the what type of risk they're willing to accept.

Now that vaccines are going to start being widely acceptable, you heard that the governor, he's already lowered the age of when you can get the vaccine.

I think we're going to go to 55 by the end of the month.

I think everybody's going to hopefully be able to get a vaccine by the end of April.

Were you know just a couple of weeks out from widespread everybody that wants a vaccine from being having access to a vaccine and listen, like I said that's why living in Florida is so great.

It's about Liberty.

It's about freedom.

If you are concerned, you're scared.

Stay at home.

Don't do anything.

So you want to take, if you want to take the risk then and you want to go out to a bar or go to a restaurant then go ahead and take that risk.

But you should have the right to choose which direction you want to go.

But I will tell you that.

I'm glad I have that decision because a lot of people across this country don't have that decision.

- Well Senator, speaking of freedom and liberty that the HB1 is the anti-riot bill the anti protest bill, and this week in the house in one of the committees the Catholic church lobbyists came out with some objections to it.

This is the governor's number one priority to crack down even further on protestors.

And we only have 30 seconds.

Why is it a good idea to pass down more laws cracking down on protests?

- Well, listen, I think that this bill bill is going to continue to be worked on as it moves through committees.

But at the end of the day, I love this bill.

What we saw January 6th in Washington, DC, the thugs anybody who hurts an officer, go to jail immediately.

Anybody who, who, who destroys public property who interferes with things, who blocks traffic, listen we should hold these protestors accountable.

And it's a, this is a great bill.

The bill is going to get better as it moves to the committee.

I think it's something we could all support.

We don't want to have violent thugs the terrorizing people's lives.

And I hope that by the time this is all said and done we'll be able to pass a bill that everybody can get behind.

- Senator Gruters, thanks a lot for coming on Florida This Week.

- Thanks so much.

- State Senator Janet Cruz represents District 18 in Tampa.

Previously, she served four terms in the Florida House of Representatives and was the House Minority Leader from 2016 to 2018 before being elected to the Florida Senate and Senator Cruz.

Welcome back.

- Thanks Rob it's great to be here.

- Let's start with some of the bills, Bright Futures.

There are proposed changes in Tallahassee over Bright Futures.

The scholarship program for Florida kids.

Is it, am I reading this right?

Do they want to dictate what, like, I mean, what courses the students can take?

- Yeah.

I mean, if ever there was a piece of legislation that was poorly thought out and will only negatively affect students and families.

It is our state of Florida.

There's 125,000 kids that utilize Bright Futures to help pay for college.

These kids often don't qualify for Pell grants, Rob and their families haven't saved massive amounts for college.

They rely on this program to obtain a college degree and get a good job.

Now, this bill is saying those advanced programs we've encouraged you to take in high school for years, we're now holding that against you.

And we're going to deduct those credits from the hours that Bright Futures will pay for.

But worse than that is that, now we're going to limit which degrees we're going to allow you to get if you want state money And qualifying degrees on the list will receive the maximum of 120 credit hours.

But if you're not on the list then you're only going to be eligible for 60 hours of aid, which is ridiculous.

You know, our kids work so hard to maintain it.

This is what it takes for Bright Futures.

You gotta maintain a GPA.

You have to study diligently.

You have to make the right scores on the required tests.

And you have to do a hundred hours of volunteer hours.

And how are we going to take that away if we don't you know, how are we going to take that away from someone?

Because we decided what their degree path should be.

- Let me ask another question.

Cause we're almost out of time that the the governor says he wants to get ahead of any potential future problems in elections by changing Florida's election laws.

And one of the things he wants to do is stop drop-off ballot boxes and make everybody mail in their mail in ballots.

What do you make of that?

- Yeah.

The absurdity of the legislation we're seeing this year, you won't believe it unless you're sitting next to me.

it's okay to drop a baby in a drop box but you can't drop a ballot in a, in a drop box.

And you know, the Florida association of supervisors of elections they're a bi-partisan group of elected officials.

They've spoken out against this bill because of the millions of dollars that it will cost Floridians.

Secretary of State, Laurel Lee even stated that there's no knowledge of any election fraud even in relation to the vote by mail system.

These are just, this is just creating barriers to, to vote.

You know, if you want someone to vote for you then go out there and do a good job go out there and do some grassroots efforts and return to the citizens, your hard work for their vote but stop trying to suppress the vote.

This is outrageous.

We should all be angry about this.

- I am still hearing from people who say that they have problems with the state's unemployment system.

Even the governor has admitted that the system is broken.

Is the legislature moving to fix the system?

And what help is there for people that currently are unemployed that might still have trouble logging onto the system?

- Well, we're on our third Secretary since the pandemic but this, this issue Rob happened long before the pandemic.

It was exacerbated by it.

And it magnified all of the deficiencies.

There was audit after audit after audit that told both Rick Scott and DeSantis that this system was plagued with issues.

The audits warned about this yet they did nothing about it because you see people that are applying for unemployment are people that are trying to, to defraud the state.

They created a system that was predicated on on their thought that everyone applying for unemployment was a fraudster.

So it was almost impossible to collect $275 a week for 12 weeks.

And they were very proud of the fact that we are the lowest, a weekly unemployment rate as well as we pay the least amount.

But we spent $77 million with Deloitte and contracted with them to create a system for us that works.

It's a disaster.

It never worked.

We threw another hundred million dollars at it during the pandemic, trying to help people receive their checks.

Even the federal dollars that should have flown easily had to go through this disastrous system.

So what do we do instead?

Instead, we turn around two months later and we award Deloitte another $107 million contract for the, the Medicaid platform.

It's ridiculous, Rob.

If you and I built a house with a contractor that was terrible, would you turn around and ask them to build another house for you?

Heck no, but that's, that's the way we reward bad behavior.

This is the fleecing of Floridians - Senator.

I wish we had more time but thank you for coming on Florida This Week.

- Thank you.

Bye - Well, finally, legendary singer/songwriter Carole King is reminding Americans that it's not too late to get a COVID-19 vaccine.

She tweeted a reworked version of her 1971 hit song to more than a hundred thousand fans this week.

She also received her shot.

Stay safe.

We'll see you next week.

♪ It's not too late baby, it's not too late.

♪ ♪ And you really are gonna make it ♪ ♪ You're gonna be so strong and healthy ♪ ♪ When it's your turn, just take it ♪ ♪ Don't be too late, baby.

♪ ♪ Don't hesitate.

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