Canada is not playing around. A few weeks ago, the Canadian government announced that beginning in January 2022, all athletes are required to show proof of vaccination against COVID-19 in order to make a trip to the country, as reiterated by Shams Charania of The Athletic. In other words, all Toronto Raptors players and those who will be playing the Raps north of the border have to prove that they are fully vaccinated before gaining entry to Canada.
Sources: Beginning Jan. 15, any NBA player who is not fully vaccinated will be unable to enter Canada to play games in Toronto. Canadian government will require all individuals entering Canada to be fully vaccinated.
More from Charania:
If a player can’t show proof of full vaccination and misses a game in Toronto, he would be subject to reduction of compensation and may be subject to fine, suspension or other action, NBA informs teams today.
The NBA along with the other top North American professional sports leagues in the NHL, MLB, and MLB have been taking serious measures in an attempt to help curb the rise of COVID-19 cases while managing to continue with their respective schedules.
The Raptors are currently struggling this season with just an 11-13 record, as of this writing, but they may get some level of advantage when playing at home against a visiting team that has a missing player or two due to this vaccine mandate by the Canadian government. Then again, there aren't a lot of them out there, with Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reporting that the NBA has a vaccination rate of 97 percent.
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