December 14, (THEWILL) – The United Kingdom (UK) will remove all 11 countries from its Covid-19 travel red list from Wednesday, British Health Secretary, Sajid Javid told parliament
The UK, had included Nigeria along with Angola, Botswana, Eswantini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, in its red list of Covid-19 travel red amidst the Omicron variant
Javid said the countries will be removed from 4am on Wednesday, adding that passengers from the countries will no longer have to isolate in a government-approved quarantine hotel for two weeks at the cost of £2,285.
“Now that there is community transmission of Omicron in the UK and Omicron has spread so widely across the world, the travel red list is now less effective in slowing the incursion of Omicron from abroad.
“Whilst we will maintain our temporary testing measures for international travel we will be removing all 11 countries from the travel red list effective from 4am tomorrow morning”, Javi said.
He added that the temporary testing measures for everyone arriving in the UK from overseas will remain for now.
Javid said he has asked for “urgent advice” about whether people currently in hotel quarantine can be released.
He said in the past they have been required to fulfil their quarantine period but indicated he did not want to see that this time.
When asked whether people currently in hotel quarantine would be reimbursed, Mr Javid said: “I would love to stand here right now and just say that is the case, but there are some issues that need to be resolved, and they are urgently being looked at.
“I hope we can say something more on this as a government, potentially even as early as today.”
Britain requires all inbound travellers to take either a PCR or a rapid lateral flow test a maximum of 48 hours before departure.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said these testing measures would be reviewed in the first week of January.
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