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South Africa is to be removed from the UK government’s travel red list, along with ten other countries. This has been confirmed by UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid and will come into effect at 6am South African time on Wednesday morning.
South Africa, along with Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Zambia, and Zimbabwe are on the list of countries.
The controversial move by the UK to place South Africa on the list was heavily criticised as being premature and unfair as the Omicron coronavirus variant is prevalent in many countries. It was even hailed as racist by some.
Javid said that all 11 countries on the travel red list would be removed, saying that the system had been shown to be ineffective in slowing the spread of the variant.
The health secretary told the House of Commons that the countries would be removed on Wednesday morning, so that passengers from those nations would no longer have to isolate in a government-approved quarantine hotel.
But he said that the temporary testing measures for everyone arriving in the UK from overseas would remain for now.
Javid said that he asked for “urgent advice” about whether people currently in hotel quarantine could be released.