In another random act of federalism, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill banning vaccine passports and announced an order to suspend all local emergency mandates effective July 1.
DeSantis signed Senate Bill 2006, passed by Florida state lawmakers last month, granting him the ability to override local emergency orders.
The bill also includes a ban on COVID-19 vaccine passports in the Sunshine State.
What’s more, each violation will result in a fine of $5,000, the Epoch Times reports.
“I’m going to sign the bill. It’s effective July 1. I’ll also sign an executive order pursuant to that bill invalidating all remaining local emergency COVID orders effective on July 1,” the republican said in a news conference on Monday. “But then, to bridge the gap between then and now, I’m going to suspend, under my executive power, the local emergency orders as it relates to COVID.”
DeSantis, describing the orders as the “evidence-based thing to do,” said that supporters of lockdowns “really are saying you don’t believe in the vaccines, you don’t believe in the data, you don’t believe in the science.”
“We’ve embraced the vaccines,” he added. “We’ve embraced the science on it.”
The order suspending local mandates only affects governments, not businesses.
“In terms of what a supermarket or some of them choose to do, a Disney theme park, this does not deal with that one way or another,” he said. “It’s simply emergency orders and emergency penalties on individual businesses.”
“You have the right to participate in society, go to a restaurant, movie, a ballgame, all these things without having to divulge this type of information,” he added.
