Ahead of this weekend’s opening ceremonies in Orlando, the Special Olympics has elected to change its vaccine policy rather than pay a hefty fine.
The state of Florida threatened to levy a $27.5 million fine on the organization for violating the state’s law prohibiting organizations from requiring its participants to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
In a letter to the Special Olympics, the Florida Department of Health said it would issue a fine for each of the 5,500 individuals in attendance, leading to the multimillion dollar sum.
In a corresponding statement, the Special Olympics announced that it would be lifting the mandate, saying, “We don’t want to fight. We want to play.”
Florida governor Ron DeSantis — an Honorary Co-Chair of the games — said, “This will be a relief to a lot of the athletes… There’s a significant number of them who were in limbo up until this week.”
The 2022 USA Games run June 5-12.
