Omicron: South Africa officially removed from UK's travel red list
Travel bans were imposed by the UK on South Africa after scientists on home soil flagged the Omicron variant to alert the world.
JOHANNESBURG - South Africa has been removed from the UK government's red list - along with 10 other countries - as of 6am South African time on Wednesday.
Travel bans were imposed by the UK on South Africa after scientists on home soil flagged the Omicron variant to alert the world.
Instead of praise, the disclosure was met with flights being restricted - first from the UK and then a number of other countries.
The move by the UK to place South Africa on it's Red list was heavily criticised as premature and unfair as the Omicron variant is prevalent in many countries.
UK health secretary Sajid Javid told the House of Commons on Tuesday that all 11 countries on the travel red list would be removed, saying the system was shown to be ineffective in slowing the variant.
The ban covered South African and other African countries with passengers entering the UK requiring to undergo a long and expensive quarantine.
Javid said passengers from these destinations would no longer have to isolate but the temporary testing measures would remain for everyone arriving in the UK.
The Airlines Association of Southern Africa (AASA) said it was relieved that sense has prevailed and that the UK has decided to relax the travel restrictions that were hastily imposed on South Africa and other southern African countries.
AASA CEO Aaron Munetsi said: "We trust that policy makers and political leaders will take their lead from science and harmonise adoption of measures for safe air travels recommended by the World Health Organization."
