UK empties travel red list, removes Nigeria, 10 others

Travellers from nations including Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, Nigeria and Zimbabwe will no longer have to isolate in a hotel from 4a.m. this Wednesday

All 11 countries on England’s coronavirus travel red list will be removed from 4a.m. on Wednesday, the government has announced.

Nations including Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe were added to the list last month after the Omicron variant was detected there.

But it has since emerged the variant is already being transmitted widely within the UK.

The announcement on the red list was made by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps on Tuesday on his verified Twtter page.

The tweet read: “From 4am on Weds 15 Dec, ALL 11 countries will be removed from England’s travel red.

“All current TESTING measures remain in place & will 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.”

The UK Health Security Agency modelled that more than 200,000 people may have been infected with the variant in the UK yesterday alone.