The Florida Department of Health last Wednesday said it hasn't pre-ordered Covid-19 vaccines for children under the age of 5 because the department doesn't recommend the shot for all children, making Florida the only state to do so, in today's bite-sized hospital and health industry news from Colorado, Florida, and Illinois.

• Colorado: Colorado's State Board of Health will allow its mandate that health care workers receive a Covid-19 vaccine to expire on July 14. Officials from the State Department of Public Health and Environment told the board that the health care workers who wanted to be vaccinated had done so, and that the department needs to "balance the necessity of high vaccination rates with the business needs of healthcare facilities." While the state's mandate is expiring, a mandate from CMS requiring health care facilities to establish a policy ensuring all eligible employees are fully vaccinated is still in effect. (Gooch, Becker's Hospital Review, 6/16)

• Florida: The Florida Department of Health on Wednesday said it hasn't pre-ordered Covid-19 vaccines for children under the age of 5 because the department doesn't recommend the shot for all children, making Florida the only state to do so. In a statement, the agency said it "has made it clear to the federal government that states do not need to be involved in the convoluted vaccine distribution process, especially when the federal government has a track record of developing inconsistent and unsustainable COVID-19 policies." In addition, Florida has recommended that healthy children between the ages of 5 and 17 not get vaccinated against Covid-19, which goes against CDC guidance. (Chen, Axios, 6/15)

• Illinois: Walgreens announced it intends to launch clinical trials with both drugmakers and biotech manufacturers later this year in an effort to increase recruitment and diversity within medical research. Ramita Tandon, former COO at Trio Health and EVP of global research at ICON, will be leading the initiative for Walgreens. According to Tandon, the goal of the initiative is "to leverage a number of our assets within Walgreens and our partnerships to help support us identifying patients for clinical trials in a more targeted fashion and then bring trials to patients where we can afford more convenience to our patients as they want to participate in clinical research." (Hartnett, Modern Healthcare, 6/16)