The government has confirmed that all 11 countries currently on the government’s international travel red list will be removed from 4am.
All testing measures will remain in place until at least a review in January.
Grant Shapps tweeted this afternoon to confirm that, from 4am on Wednesday December 15, there will be no countries on red list for England. That means arrivals from South Africa, Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Zambia and Zimbabwe, which are currently on the list, no longer need to spend 10 days in hotel quarantine.
The transport secretary reminded travellers of the current testing rules, which are that all those travelling to the UK must take a pre-departure Covid test in their destination and a PCR on return to the UK, self-isolating until they receive their result, regardless of vaccination status.
The rules were brought in to combat the spread of the Omicron variant, which now has community transmission in the UK.
Shapps added: “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.”
TRAVEL UPDATE
From 4am on Weds 15 Dec, ALL 11 countries will be removed from England’s travel red list #Internationaltravel (1/3)
— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) December 14, 2021
Health secretary Sajid Javid told the House of Commons: “We won’t keep measures in place for a moment longer than we need to. 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.
“So I can announce today that while we will maintain our temporary testing measures for international travel, we will be removing all 11 countries from the travel red list effective from 4am tomorrow morning.”
Scotland and Wales both later confirmed they would adopt the same rules on testing and remove all 11 countries from their red lists.
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