Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo joined Charlie Kirk on his show to talk about the dangers of the nation returning to COVID-19 vaccine mandates and lockdowns.
In recent weeks there has been an uptick in colleges reinstating mask mandates for their students in the United States. Some businesses have taken similar steps as well.
The mask mandates come as a new COVID-19 strain has begun to spread.
Suggestions from media pundits on top of the fact that President Joe Biden just bought up more COVID-19 "safety" supplies signal there is an increasing effort to move towards previous governmental COVID-19 measures.
Kirk asked Ladapo just how harmful measures such as the COVID-19 lockdowns can be for the country in a segment on the subject.
"The lockdowns were obviously really harmful. I mean they were devastating to mental health for so many millions of people both young and old," Ladapo told Kirk. "Young people in particular faced really high burdens, because they were a period of time in their lives where social connection is so important."
After the COVID-19 lockdowns, data demonstrated the lockdown's negative effect on young people's learning ability as well as their mental health.
"Us saying no to [lockdowns] is the most important thing that we can do because they can't get anywhere without our cooperation," Ladapo continued.
Kirk reflected on how the new vaccine mandates are seen at Rutgers University and mask mandates at an Atlanta university. Kirk then asked Ladapo, "How do we properly push back against this?"
Ladapo said that to avoid future lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and masking rules, people are going to have to push back against new measures.
"Well, I think we can look at the example of people who have really stood their ground and said that they're not going to budge," Ladapo told Kirk. "Governor DeSantis is an example of that. There are many other examples of that. We did our version of that out there in California, which is part of how I ended up in this position here as a Surgeon General in Florida."
Continuing his line of thought, Ladapo said that there is no real reason to enforce masking rules and vaccine mandates because scientific data does not back up the usage of such measures, stating "At this point in the pandemic, it's ludicrous to be pushing these vaccines, probably for anyone."
"What is driving them to push the boosters despite data and shows that they can actually be harmful?" Kirk then asked Ladapo.
Ladapo described the effort to push more vaccine mandates as "ludicrous."
"The reason is that there's no good quality evidence that shows that they're benefiting anyone at this point," he continued. "There are multiple studies, for example, that show the boosters are associated with an increased risk of infection over time. So just to be clear, I'm saying that these boosters will increase your risk of contracting COVID after a period of time, according to multiple studies that have been performed in multiple countries."
Ladapo touched on cardiac concerns for people taking the vaccine and said that a study in Switzerland revealed that two to three percent of people have signs of cardiac injury associated with the vaccine.
"You shouldn't let anyone convince you that that's okay. That's completely abnormal," he added.
The only people who should be concerned with severe illness, Ladapo said, are older people. Younger people, on the other hand, should not be worried about it.
He added that getting more boosters at this point if a person has already "contracted COVID" is "like three shots of loco" because the new vaccines have not been proven effective yet.
"It's completely... crazy to be recommending these vaccines to low-risk people."
Referencing a video of a doctor on the CBS Mornings show stating "We are seeing a record number of infants zero to one in the hospital with COVID," Kirk asked Ladapo, "Do you see any evidence of this?"
Ladapo responded that they are in fact tracking the cases of COVID deaths in Florida and that they, for the most part, are concentrated in the older demographic, age range of 60-65 years. He concluded, "It's very rare now to see young people of any age, including infants, becoming severely ill and dying from COVID. It's so extraordinarily rare at this point... It's totally ludicrous."
