{"id":47473,"date":"2021-01-29T12:48:34","date_gmt":"2021-01-29T17:48:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=47473"},"modified":"2021-01-29T12:48:42","modified_gmt":"2021-01-29T17:48:42","slug":"did-publix-give-100000-to-desantis-gets-exclusive-covid-vaccination-deals-in-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2021\/01\/did-publix-give-100000-to-desantis-gets-exclusive-covid-vaccination-deals-in-florida\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Publix give $100,000 to DeSantis, gets exclusive COVID vaccination deals in Florida?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>As Floridians get increasingly antsy for COVID vaccines, there are growing questions about why Gov. Ron DeSantis granted Publix exclusive rights to provide vaccines in some places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On some levels, it makes sense. Publix has stores are all over the place. And the company generally has a reputation for having its act together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Still, in a state that is doing a slightly below-average job of distributing vaccines \u2014 more on that in a moment \u2014 I wonder why Floridians don\u2019t have more retail options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It seems like we\u2019d want as many soldiers as possible in the war on COVID.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why only Publix, whose vaccine-appointment portal filled up&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.orlandosentinel.com\/coronavirus\/os-ne-coronavirus-publix-vaccine-portal-20210126-tsdx3hstnzbgvnhezmjbshamkm-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">90 minutes after opening<\/a>&nbsp;Wednesday?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s only natural to wonder \u2014 especially after reading stories like: \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/news.wjct.org\/post\/publix-vaccine-rollout-follows-grocer-s-100k-donation-desantis-political-committee\">Publix Vaccine Rollout Follows Grocer\u2019s $100K Donation To DeSantis\u2019 Political Committee<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theledger.com\/story\/news\/coronavirus\/2021\/01\/14\/desantis-office-no-link-between-publix-money-covid-vaccine-deal\/4156399001\/\">Gov. DeSantis\u2019 office: Publix PAC money not linked to launch of COVID-19 vaccine program<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>State records show that Publix cut the last of four $25,000 checks to DeSantis\u2019 campaign committee on Dec. 31. Five days later, DeSantis&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flgov.com\/2021\/01\/05\/governor-ron-desantis-announces-partnership-with-publix-to-open-covid-19-vaccination-sites\/\">announced<\/a>&nbsp;the state\u2019s exclusive partnership with Publix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>DeSantis has denied there was any tit for tat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Floridians get increasingly antsy for COVID vaccines, there are growing questions about why Gov. Ron DeSantis granted Publix exclusive rights to provide vaccines in some places. On some levels,&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":47471,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47473"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}