Tears of Joy as UK Removes all Countries from Red List Including South Africa

The UK government has said that all 11 countries currently on its travel Red Llist, including South Africa, will be removed from 04h00 on Wednesday morning!

“Tears rolling down my cheeks,” said SA expat Loulou C, who is in Scotland. “I am SO SO happy… going to cuddle my mum and not let her go; and sip the odd vino with my sister.”

Apart from SA, the other countries on the list were Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Zambia and Zimbabwe. They had controversially been placed on the banned list by PM Boris Johnson as a precaution against the Omicron Coronavirus variant, which was discovered in November. Only UK citizens or UK residents, travelling from Red List countries, were allowed entry into the UK in an attempt to slow the spread of the variant.

On Tuesday Health Secretary Sajid Javid said that due to Omicron now being so widespread, the ban no longer served much use.

He told the UK Parliament: “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 4 am tomorrow morning.”

The testing measures – a PCR or rapid lateral flow test a maximum of 48 hours before departure for inbound travellers – will be reviewed in the first week of January. UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: “As always, we keep all our travel measures under review and we may impose new restrictions should there be a need to do so to protect public health.”

The Red List caused much controversy after the UK travellers who were already abroad and allowed home, were suddenly forced into quarantine hotels on their return. The state-appointed hotels were prohibitively expensive (at over £2,000 for the mandatory 10-day stay) with “grim food” (as observed by eSwatini actor Richard E Grant) and resulted in almost R1-billion of cancelled travel plans to SA within 48 hours of its announcement.

According to the UK Health Minister, he has submitted an urgent request for those who are currently in quarantine to be permitted to leave.

For those who paid the exorbitant quarantine costs, Javid said an announcement would be made imminently and that he was “very persuaded” by calls for them to be reimbursed.

From the start SA’s President Cyril Ramaphosa led the calls for the southern African countries to be removed from the Red List, calling it “travel apartheid” and speaking on the phone to Johnson.

For many, many South Africans – both those at home and in the UK – there couldn’t be a better gift for Christmas than SA being removed from the Red List and relatives and loved ones being able to reunite during this festive season.