Canadian junior girls’s area hockey staff will get testing exemption to return from South Africa

Twenty athletes and 5 workers on Discipline Hockey Canada’s junior girls’s area hockey staff have acquired a federal authorities exemption that can get them dwelling this week from South Africa.

The staff acquired caught in Potchefstroom, a metropolis about 120 kilometres southwest of Johannesburg, when Canada and lots of different international locations enacted new journey restrictions as a result of Omicron variant of COVID-19. The staff went to South Africa for the junior girls’s World Cup, scheduled for Dec. 5 to 17.

Because the journey bans have been introduced, concern arose amongst households of staff members.

“In the present day began off fairly wretched, and I’m very, very hopeful that we’re going to get them dwelling,” mentioned Susan Goddard, whose daughter is on the B.C.-based staff.

Then on Saturday, Discipline Hockey Canada mentioned the federal authorities had granted a “time-limited waiver” to among the testing necessities for reentry into Canada.

The staff will likely be allowed to offer  a unfavorable PCR take a look at outcome inside 48 hours of its scheduled remaining flight to Canada, as a substitute of the usual 72 hours — issued by an accredited lab in South Africa.

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“Discipline Hockey Canada athletes and workers are at present booked on a flight out of Johannesburg on December 8, transiting by Germany,” the group wrote on its web site.”

“Discipline Hockey Canada’s workers and athletes will confirm their take a look at paperwork to make sure they’re inside the 48-hour window.”

With out the federal government exemption, the staff wouldn’t have been capable of board its Dec. 8 flight.

The staff had beforehand been knowledgeable by the federal authorities that whereas a chartered flight to Canada could be attainable, all industrial flight choices wanted to be exhausted first.

Susan Goddard awakened on Saturday morning, nonetheless beneath the impression that the Dec. 8 flight to Germany won’t work out. Consequently, she mentioned, mother and father have been able to take motion.

“We began writing our MPs once more, going again on social media, reaching out to anybody we may,” she defined.

“Then I acquired a telephone name from my husband and he was like, ‘Verify your e-mail, verify your e-mail! They’ve acquired an exemption. They get to come back by!’”

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The staff arrived in South Africa on Nov. 23 to coach. Days later they came upon about Canada’s restrictions on travellers from southern African international locations — when Omicron was dubbed a variant of concern by the World Well being Group.

The match was cancelled final Thursday, however most industrial flights out of South Africa have been already suspended, leaving the gamers and workers with out rapid means to journey dwelling.

The staff and supporters had fundraised greater than $160,000 to take part within the match after turning into the primary Canadian staff to win gold on the Junior Pan American Video games in Chile in August.

—With recordsdata from The Canadian Press

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