CRAWFORDVILLE, Fla. – Gov. Ron DeSantis held a news conference Tuesday morning in the Florida Panhandle to announce free books for 81,000 students.
DeSantis spoke at an elementary school in Crawfordville, near Tallahassee. The governor was joined by House Speak Chris Sprowls and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran for the news conference, scheduled to begin at 10 a.m.
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The governor said this announcement was part of his administration’s commitment to early childhood literacy.
“Our view in Florida is that is early literacy is absolutely critical,” DeSantis said. “You really spend those early years, up until about third grade, learning how to read and then after third grade you really read in order to learn... So, we believe that if we get everyone up to speed by the third grade then we are going to be in really, really good shape.”
This comes after appointments at state-run monoclonal antibody sites due to revised authorizations from the Food and Drug Administration on Regeneron Monday.
The authorizations now specifically limit the treatments’ usage to patients likely to have been infected by or exposed to a different COVID variant. However, the FDA says it’s estimated that more than 99% of COVID-19 cases accounted for in the U.S. are linked to the omicron variant.
DeSantis released a statement demanding the Biden Administration to reverse the authorization change.
“Without a shred of clinical data to support this action, Biden has forced trained medical professionals to choose between treating their patients or breaking the law,” he said in a release. “This indefensible edict takes treatment out of the hands of medical professionals and will cost some Americans their lives. There are real-world implications to Biden’s medical authoritarianism – Americans’ access to treatments is now subject to the whims of a failing president.”