On the morning of Sept. 27, 2021, Josh Hargis opened a private video-chat link for what the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee billed as an open dialogue about its newly implemented mandate. Everyone on Team USA would need to be vaccinated against Covid-19 by Nov. 1, unless they could obtain a medical exemption — or a religious one. The executive order to jump the scientific starting gun on the 2022 Winter Games was a harrowing decision, senior Olympic officials acknowledge, not least because they knew the anti-vaxxer crowd — emboldened by an emerging class of brazenly unvaccinated superstar athletes — would come at them with fake news. “From the start of the pandemic, we have made science-based, data-driven decisions,” the USOPC’s CEO wrote in a memo to all American athletes, which was attached to an invitation for the meeting and obtained by Rolling Stone . “There is strong support for this requirement from our community.” Among two-dozen or so … [Read more...] about ‘Get Vaccinated or Else’: The Anti-Vaxxers of the Winter Games Fought the Olympic Mandate. Did the Mandate Win?