SA Travel & Hospitality Slam UK Red List Ban, Hopeful it Will Be Swiftly Lifted

The South African travel and hospitality industry has reacted with outrage at the UK’s decision to temporarily ban travel to and from South Africa, placing SA on its Red List from midday UK time today.

SATSA slammed the decision, with its CEO David Frost saying:

“It is far too early to tell what the impact of this new variant will be. By imposing a blanket red list ban on several Southern African countries as a ‘precautionary’ measure the UK sends a signal to the world that they don’t believe that their vaccination programme will effectively deal with the variant when we have seen that COVID-19 vaccines have performed their role to reduce the severity of hospitalisation and death from the virus.”

Renowned South African bioinformatician, Professor Tulio de Oliveira, told a media briefing in SA on Thursday that the new variant has a more than 30 mutations. The UK said last night that with B.1.1.529 having a dramatically different spike protein to the original on which the vaccines are based, it “would suggest that it may well be more transmissible and the current vaccines that we have may well be less effective”. The severity of the disease caused by this variant was not disclosed.

The South African Health Department and NICD stressed yesterday that vaccinations are still the strongest tool against Covid-19 and reducing the severity of the illness if caught.

UK’s ‘precautionary’ ban on South African travel

After not closing its borders soon enough following the announcement of previous variants, the UK said it was putting a “precautionary” ban on travel to SA and several southern African countries. The UK has been particularly hard-hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, with a loss of life totalling over 144,000.

The UK government announced on Thursday, 25 November, that South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and Zimbabwe will move onto the red list at 12.00 midday UK time on Friday 26 November. There will be a temporary ban on all direct commercial and private flights from these countries from 12.00 midday Friday 26 November to 04h00 Sunday 28 November while the UK government reassesses the situation.

Anyone arriving in the UK from South Africa before 4am on Sunday 28 November, needs to quarantine at home or at an alternative accommodation. After 4am Sunday 28 November, South Africans will once again need to quarantine in a managed hotel. They will need to book a quarantine hotel package, including 2 COVID-19 tests, before they arrive in England.

FEDHASA – SA’s hospitality association – says it is hopeful that the UK’s precautionary measure will be lifted swiftly as scientists unpack the extent to which the COVID-19 vaccines will be effective against the new variant, B1.1.529.

FEDHASA National Chairperson Rosemary Anderson said today: “The UK being our largest inbound international market, last night’s news by the British Government has caused widespread disbelief and disappointment amongst our hospitality industry as we enter our peak festive season period.

New variants all the time, without making major impact

“New variants are discovered all the time, often without making any major impact, and we are still hopeful that our advanced scientific capability will find that in this case there is little to worry about. However, that does not mean that this decision by the British government won’t have widespread repercussions, not only by dissuading British travellers to visit South Africa, but also due to the likely spin-off we will see from other key source markets if they take the UK’s lead.”

FEDHASA says the situation is “unsustainable” for South Africa and for its tourism and hospitality sector which generates 1.5 million direct and indirect jobs and is the country’s second-largest export.

South Africans need to vaccinate

“There is no question that South Africans need to go out and get vaccinated as a matter of urgency. To be locked down on a semi-regular basis and banned for international travel because of our advanced genomic sequencing capability and low vaccination rates cannot continue. We depend on tourism for jobs and livelihoods,” Anderson says.

Only 35% of South Africans have been fully vaccinated so far, and due to a vaccine hesitancy, the vaccine campaign has slowed down to such an extent that Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson revealed earlier this week that SA has asked them to delay vaccine deliveries.

Anderson called on South Africans to do everything in their power to stem the spread of a fourth wave as the country heads into the festive season with a rising infection rate and the prospect of local lockdowns.

“We simply cannot have a repeat of December 2020 where restaurants and hospitality businesses bore the brunt of COVID regulations making travel and restaurant patronage unappealing and difficult. Our industry has had to endure being thrust from wave to wave for the past 20 months and it simply isn’t sustainable to keep businesses open and livelihoods intact. It is up to every South African to do their part and help us keep our doors open by complying with the protocols and getting their #jab4tourism.”

Groundhog Day for SA’s travel industry

ASATA called it “groundhog day” for SA’s travel industry, and said the UK’s ban is a “setback of massive proportions for the South African travel industry”.

“It’s Groundhog Day for the South African travel industry. The new ban is a knee-jerk reaction of the UK government that puts airlines, hotels, travel businesses and travellers in a very difficult situation,” says Otto de Vries, CEO ASATA.

“The world will unfortunately need to learn to live with COVID variants for the foreseeable future. While we await more clarity, there is currently no scientific evidence that the new variant is more resistant to the vaccine. COVID vaccines are in fact the most effective way to protect yourself against the virus, as they significantly reduce the risk of serious illness, long COVID and COVID transmissibility.”

Infectious disease expert Professor Marc Mendelson agrees and says there is nothing to indicate at this stage that the protection COVID-19 vaccines offer will change in the face of the latest variant. “COVID-19 vaccines have proven themselves extremely robust against all SARS-CoV-2 variants to date.”

Professor Shabir A. Madhi, Dean: Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand, adds the world need to accept that breakthrough infections will continue to occur. “The sooner we come to accept this, the sooner we can recalibrate how to move forward.”

Important to keep in mind, according to Madhi is that breakthrough infections are less infectious. For example, it is 60% less likely to transmit Delta when vaccinated. The risk of developing long COVID is also greatly reduced.

Says Madhi: “Vaccines are primarily about preventing severe disease. In the case of the new B1.1.529, we should learn from what transpired with the Beta variant, which also showed resistance to vaccine-induced antibodies. Nevertheless, the vaccine still conferred high protection against severe COVID.”

SATSA Slams UK Decision as ‘Exaggerated’

SATSA says the UK’s Red list ban is a “knee-jerk reaction” from the British Government; and is “exaggerated” and “punishes countries like South Africa with advanced genome sequencing capability for finding new variants”.

“We are extremely disappointed at the British government’s decision and trust that science will prevail and that this temporary ban will be lifted swiftly,” Frost says.

EU may stop air travel from southern Africa too

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the EU Commission, tweeted on Friday morning that the EU Commission “will propose, in close coordination with Member States, to activate the emergency brake to stop air travel from the southern African region due to the variant of concern B.1.1.529.”

Many South Africans in the UK are devastated and furious as they’d booked to fly home for Christmas after two years of not seeing family and friends, whilst South Africans back home are blaming SA’s excellent genomic sequencing for the issue. “Next time we find something we should keep it to ourselves,” said one.

South Africa’s Shadow Minister of Public Service, Leon Schreiber, tweeted: “Did a hysterical press conference by an obscure scientist on a variant we know very little about just condemn our tourism industry, tank the Rand, get us banned from the world, and trigger a global panic? Who voted to give away power over these decisions?”