The United Kingdom has taken all 11 African countries off its travel red list. It will be made official tomorrow, Wednesday, the health secretary, Sajid Javid, announced.
By this decision, England will no longer require hotel quarantine for travellers from Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
However, a pre-arrival negative test and then another PCR test after arrival remain in place for all travellers.
Javid had explained in the Parliament, the rationale for ending the travel red list. The health secretary stated that as the new variant is spreading in the UK, travel restrictions are “now less effective in slowing the incursion of Omicron from abroad”.
Travel rules are set by the four nations of the UK independently, but the other nations’ governments often follow proposals from Westminster.
Deputy PM Dominic Raab earlier said people in England will be able to spend Christmas in a way they could not last year because of Plan B restrictions
Parliamentarians are currently debating the new measures in the Commons, with a big Tory rebellion expected over Covid passes for some venues.
In South Africa, medics say the country is mainly seeing “mild disease” and intensive care units are not overwhelmed.
The United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Canada and Argentina had recently imposed restrictive measures on Nigeria, specifically barring flights from the country into theirs.
Nigeria responded with threats of retaliatory measures.