Facing $27.5 million fine from DeSantis, Special Olympics drops vaccine requirement

TALLAHASSEE – Special Olympics International has dropped its requirement that athletes competing in Orlando next week show proof of COVID-19 vaccinations, after Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration threatened to slap it with $27.5 million in fines for violating Florida’s anti-mandate law.

DeSantis touted the decision Friday, joined by state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, whose Health Department notified the organization about the possible fine a day earlier. The amount is based on penalties assessed for the 5,500 athletes expected to compete June 5-12 at the Special Olympics USA Olympic Games.

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“Your rights or your freedom should not be circumscribed by your decision to take or not take the COVID vaccine,” DeSantis said at news conference, before many parents and athletes at an Orlando golf resort.

The Republican governor, up for re-election this year and widely seen as a potential presidential contender in 2024, continued his criticism of COVID-19 policies by other state and local governments, the Biden administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“You should be able to go to a movie theater, you should be able to go to a restaurant and be able to do what you want to do, without having to produce medical papers, and certainly without being excluded from participating in society,” DeSantis said. “There were some who didn’t want people who wouldn’t bow down to this altar of vaccines.”

Special Olympics International, in a statement Thursday, said it was abandoning the vaccine requirement for athletes.

“We don’t want to fight. We want to play,” the organization said in its release.

The CDC has recommended vaccinations for everyone age 5 and older, including special needs people. The organization has cited the potential for severe health problems caused by contracting COVID-19.

Those with Down syndrome are considered four times more likely to be hospitalized — and 10 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than the general population, according to a 2020 British study.

But, clearly, the issue of whether to get vaccinated or not divides the special needs community, just as it does many Americans. DeSantis for the past two years has forged an alliance with those who don’t support any form of requirement to blunt the pandemic — signing laws that bar employers, schools and local governments from demanding masks and vaccines.

USA TODAY-Network Florida reported last week that most of the more than 74,000 people who died in Florida of COVID-19 have succumbed in the past 12 months, since vaccinations were made widely available, according to CDC data.

Most of those who died chose not to get the free shots, research showed.

Ladapo, though, continued on Friday to raise skepticism about vaccinations.

The surgeon general was a signer of the Great Barrington Declaration, a document that promoted herd immunity, and not vaccines or social precautions, as a way to emerge from the pandemic.

He also has promoted the use of the drugs ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as COVID-19 treatments, which have been discredited.

 “How can you force people to take a vaccine in order to stop transmission, when that vaccine is not effective at stopping transmission?” Ladapo said. “You don’t have to go to medical school to know that doesn't make sense. And that’s what Special Olympics International was asking people to do….at this point, this far out, there’s basically zero protection from infection, getting vaccinated.”

He added, “Ethically, it doesn’t make sense.”

The Florida Democratic Party and the Disability Caucus condemned DeSantis' threat in a joint statement released early Saturday.

"It seems that there is no organization, charity, or non-profit that Governor DeSantis wouldn't use his office to force under his political control," they wrote in their statement. "DeSantis' vendettas are more evidence that the governor prefers to focus on divisive battles instead of helping Floridians."

John Kennedy is a reporter in the USA TODAY Network’s Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jkennedy2@gannett.com, or on Twitter at @JKennedyReport