England to drop all 11 countries from coronavirus travel red list
Move signals acceptance by UK government that Omicron variant can no longer be contained
The UK will remove all 11 countries from England’s coronavirus travel “red list” of travel restrictions, signalling that ministers accept that the Omicron variant can no longer be contained.
The UK’s Covid-19 testing system remained under pressure on Tuesday, with people in England unable to book PCR tests for a few hours while the website for ordering rapid lateral flow antigen tests remained closed to new bookings.
Sajid Javid, health secretary, told the House of Commons that hotel quarantine for travellers arriving in England from the red list countries would cease from 4am on Wednesday.
“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,” he said.
The 11 African nations were added to the red list after South African authorities became the first to alert the world to the Omicron variant in late November. The countries on the list, which requires a mandatory 10-day hotel quarantine, are Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
As public health is a devolved matter, Javid’s decision only applies to England but the administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales typically follow suit.
Since the emergence of the Omicron variant, all arrivals to the UK are required to undertake a day two PCR test and must isolate at home until they receive the result. Paid for lateral flow tests are also required before departure.
Those with knowledge of the discussions said that ministers had concluded it was “pointless” maintaining the red list that will restrict travel over the Christmas period given the new variant was spreading so rapidly. The decision was backed up by public health advice, officials said.
Transport secretary Grant Shapps said that the testing regime would be reviewed in the first week of January.
“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,” he said.
Javid hinted that those currently in quarantine may be able to leave early and added he was “persuaded” by pleas to reimburse those who had paid for hotel stays.
Travel sector bosses said the removal of the 11 countries from the red list was welcome but argued that the rapid spread of Omicron also negated the need for PCR tests and quarantine for travellers.
“The UK testing requirements for vaccinated international arrivals continue to stifle businesses across the inbound tourism industry, which employs over 500,000 Brits,” said Joss Croft, chief executive of UKInbound, a trade association.
Data from Trivago, the online travel agent, shows that the rate of holiday cancellations in the UK has increased from 5 per cent in October to around 25 per cent at the beginning of December.
Javid also said that the bottleneck with people accessing lateral flow tests was not because of a shortage of supply.
“The situation at present is the warehouses at UKHSA (UK Health Security Agency) have plenty of stock,” he said. “But the distribution channel has been limited although they have added to that significantly in recent days.”
Downing Street said that it was working with private companies such as Amazon to boost availability of lateral flow tests.
“Royal Mail are freeing up additional delivery slots to become available in the next few days and we’re working with a range of businesses including Amazon to further expand capacity,” the prime minister’s spokesperson said.
UKHSA has said that it was issuing “record numbers of rapid test kits”, including 1.6m tests on Monday. “There is no shortage of lateral flow tests. More tests should become available for home delivery every few hours.”
On PCR tests, the agency said that appointments were available but conceded that “high demand can lead to temporary reduced availability in some areas”. More PCR appointments are made available to book every afternoon, the agency said.