WSLR’s Surreal News interviews former Florida Surgeon General Scott Rivkees.
By Johannes Werner
Original Air Date: October 3, 2025
Host: A couple weeks ago, Florida’s Surgeon General appeared in a press conference at a Christian school in Hillsborough County, flanked by Governor Ron DeSantis. Joseph Ladapo announced his intent to end each and every vaccine mandate in the state. This week, his predecessor, Scott Rivkees, shared his thoughts about Ladapo’s plans with WSLR’s Surreal News host Lew Lorrini.
Johannes Werner: Dr. Scott Rivkees served as Florida’s Surgeon General during the pandemic. The pediatrician now is an associate dean at Brown University in Rhode Island. Asked by Lorrini for his reaction to an end of vaccine mandates for students, Rivkees couldn’t have been more clear.
Scott Rivkees
Scott Rivkees: This decision will have ramifications beyond pediatric populations. If there’s one thing we can agree on, it’s the fact that children should be as safe and as healthy as they can be, especially in a school setting. One of the reasons that children are able to go to school and remain healthy is because of vaccine efforts that have been in place for decades. For vaccines to work to protect us all, we talk about population immunity and herd immunity, and this really is dependent on two things: First, a parent vaccinating their child, but also the parent or guardian who lives next door, across the street, in the same classroom vaccinating their child, because not all vaccines are 100% effective. If you go to a situation where you leave it up to parents to decide, we are predictably going to see falling vaccination rates, which will set us up for outbreaks and infections, which will affect schools. It’ll spill over into the community and can have broad effects as well.
JW: Vaccination rates of students in Florida have already declined, and Rivkees expects them to drop even more now.
SR: The Florida Department of Health, on their website, will list the percentage of children at a county level who are up to date on vaccines entering kindergartens. Historically, this had always been above 95%, even if you look five years ago in Florida. But if you look at more recent data now, I’m really worried about the fact that in some large counties—Broward County, Brevard County—actually Sarasota County, where you are now—the vaccination rate of children going into kindergarten is either less than 80% or just hovering around 80%. What we know is that, at least for measles, you really have to have more than 95% of children vaccinated to be able to prevent outbreaks. So here we are. And this is because of the fact that individuals are taking advantage of the religious exemption. But without requirements, there’s no doubt that these vaccination rates will fall even further, which will set communities up for outbreaks and infections.
JW: Ladapo also announced he wants to ban mRNA COVID vaccines, based on fears they may alter people’s DNA. Rivkees roundly rejects that theory.
To listen to Lew Lorrini’s full Rivkees interview, go to wslr.org, click on “archive” in the menu, and look for the Friday edition of Surreal News.
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