Florida is allowing its top public health official in Orlando to return to work after a two-month suspension related to an email he sent to his staff noting their abysmal COVID-19 vaccination rate and urging them to get vaccinated.

Dr. Raul Pino, the health administrator for Florida’s Orange County, sent the email to public health employees on January 4 as the state was seeing a surge of COVID-19 cases amid the omicron wave of the pandemic. The email noted that less than half of the 568 employees at the county’s public health office were fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Only 77 of them had gotten a booster shot, Pino added. He called the staff’s vaccination rate “pathetic” and wrote that it was “irresponsible” not to be vaccinated at that point.