ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — With a week left until the first deadline for Orange County’s vaccination mandate, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings outlined the consequence for those who do not get the vaccine.

During the county’s regular COVID-19 update on Thursday, Demings said that discussions continued this week with the International Association of Firefighters regarding the mandate and the county offered a cap on disciplines.

Demings said those employees who did not get vaccinated against COVID-19 would receive a written reprimand. He clarified at the end of the press briefing that this disciplinary step would extend to all employees who declined to meet the vaccine requirement.

“I very much respect the input we’ve heard from our employees who were fearful of losing their jobs,” Demings said. “We are a passionate and caring employer, but we must also balance that with protecting our employees and the public.”  

As of Thursday, 84% of all county employees either received one dose of the vaccine or accommodations. That breaks down to 94% of non-union workers and 69 percent of union workers.

The vaccine mandate was announced in July as the Delta variant was spreading in the state. Orange County reported the deadliest month of the pandemic during August, which saw 401 deaths. That was nearly double the 228 from the previous high of January 2021. 

The third deadliest month for the pandemic was in July 2020, which recorded 227 deaths from the virus. Demings also noted that since the coronavirus update on Monday, 45 people in the county had died. 

He added that the county’s efforts to increase vaccinations and testing were yielding positive results with the 14-day positivity rate continuing to decline from more than 14% two weeks ago to 10.5% on Thursday.

“The central theme of the efforts that we have put in place here in Orange County, it has always been on the preservation of human life,” Demings said.

But the mandate has not been without pushback.

Group of firefighters against idea of vaccines

A group of firefighters has resisted the idea of requiring vaccines and some have engaged in protests since the announcement in July. 

“It’s a bit more frustrating because we are on the front lines,” said Jason Wheat, an emergency medical technician with Orange County Fire Department on Sept. 14. “We have been doing this since day one. We have been doing it without a vaccine. We do it without any hesitation because that is what we do. We serve the public.”

According to county data obtained by our reporting partner, The Orlando Sentinel, more than 500 of the county’s 1,456 fire department employees remain unvaccinated or have not reported their status to the county.

Demings said getting county employees vaccinate is especially important because they interact and serve the public so directly.

“By and large, of our employees who have contracted COVID-19, the overwhelming majority of those are public safety officers, whether firefighters or our correctional staff members,” Demings said. “That probably is the area, especially within corrections, where we’ve seen more deaths of our employees than any other department.”

“Part of our effort here is I don’t want our firefighters who are working in the field going into someone’s home (and) unknowingly spreading the virus to the citizens that we serve. I don’t want them to unknowingly spread it to their coworkers as well, who can take it home and spread it to family members.”  

The deadline for a first vaccination dose is Sept. 30 and the vaccine regimen needs to be completed by Oct. 31 for all county employees.