UK set to scrap hotel quarantines for southern Africa arrivals.
Only a little more than 2-weeks after 11 African countries were placed on the travel red list to prevent the spread of the Omicron variant, the United Kingdom is set to reverse the decision, easing travel restrictions to the continent.
Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe were all placed on the coronavirus red list in late November.
This meant passengers arriving into the UK from any of these countries must pay for and self-isolate in a pre-booked, government-approved hotel for 10 days.
It also meant that people in red-list nations who don’t have UK residency rights were banned from entering the country.
Starting Wednesday, that policy is set to change, allowing travellers from these African countries to travel freely.
The reason for the reversal is that the UK government accepts the Omicron variant can no longer be contained – the number of omicron cases in the UK are doubling every two to three days.
Sajid Javid, UK health secretary, has previously hinted that the red list no longer served a purpose.
Speaking to the House of Commons last week, he said: “If, as I think is likely, we see many more infections and this variant becomes the dominant variant, there will be less need to have any kind of travel restrictions at all.”
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres branded the red-list rules “travel apartheid.”
The latest decision will be welcomed by the travel and hospitality industries, particularly in Cape Town, where the summer touristy season looked to be non-existent just 2-weeks ago, as thousands of passengers cancelled their bookings.
Whether many of those passengers decide to re-book again remains to be seen.
As public health is a devolved matter, the UK government’s decision only applies to England but the other three administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales typically follow suit.
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