French Government locks out non-vaccinated players

Government locks out non-vaccinated players

The French government locks out non-vaccinated players has given the go-ahead for the health pass to be converted into a vaccine pass, meaning that anyone wishing to enter leisure and cultural venues including sports grounds and stadiums will have to be vaccinated.

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Players who are not vaccinated will not be allowed to travel to play rugby in France in the Six Nations after the French parliament passed a new law on Monday.
According to the new law, all people who wish to visit public places must be vaccinated while any athlete, including professionals, who come for any competition in France will have to be vaccinated to enter a sports venue.
The law was issued as a clarification after Sports Minister Roxana Maracineanu suggested last week that the health bubble in force during the Roland Garros French Open tennis tournament would allow unvaccinated athletes from abroad like Novak Djokovic to play.

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The obligation to be vaccinated may mean that there will no longer need to be a health bubble around an international competition but that has not been decided.
France will host England, Ireland, and Italy in this year’s competition. England’s Henry Slade spoke openly of his non-vaccine stance last year but otherwise, there are no indications whether or how many of the players from the other teams might be affected.

Do athletes need to be vaccinated?
The question of whether or not athletes should be vaccinated has been at the root of social media and news outlets for the last few weeks, as the NFL and NBA have released their new protocols for their next seasons. The majority of athletes are getting the vaccine, however, there are still many that refuse even though coaching staff and other workers are being forced to.
The NFL will not be making any accommodations for teams that have unvaccinated players. With their updated guidelines the rule is that if a game cannot be rescheduled during the new season due to a COVID-19 outbreak, the team that has the outbreak will be counted with the loss and neither team will receive pay.
Last season, the NFL dealt with rescheduling and postponing games due to outbreaks. However, they were able to get through the entire season fairly unscathed. Give credit to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and executives around the league for being able to do this, as a fair share of the population, including myself, did not think it would go so smoothly.
Similar to the NFL, the NBA is not showing any sympathy for unvaccinated players. In the recent protocol update, unvaccinated players will have to undergo daily testing and be quarantined for extensive time periods, even if it is just from contact tracing. Players with the vaccine will essentially return to pre-pandemic professional life.