At last, hated travel red list is axed – but you’ll have to quarantine at home after entering UK
MINISTERS are planning to abolish the ‘traffic light’ travel system which forces visitors from ‘red list’ countries to quarantine in airport hotels for ten days, The Mail on Sunday has learned.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps is understood to have convinced colleagues that the controversial scheme, which led to chaotic last-minute changes of plan for many holidaymakers, should be replaced for the fullyvaccinated by a universal system of tests pre-departure and then again by Day 2 on their return – with the travellers self-isolating at home until they produce a negative result.
The move, which is expected to be approved by the Covid-O group of Ministers and officials this week, is the result of new data which suggests Omicron is already spreading so rapidly around the globe that there will soon be limited differences in countries’ infection rates.
Mr Shapps and his officials are keen to approve the change in time to avoid having to force anyone to spend Christmas in an airport hotel.
There are currently eleven African countries on the list: Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
But with Omicron expected to have replaced Delta as the dominant variant in the UK by the end of the year there is decreasing justification for forcing visitors from a red-list country to submit to hotel quarantine for 11 nights at a cost of £2,285 per person.
With passenger traffic at British airports running at barely half of pre-pandemic levels, travel bosses have been lobbying Ministers to end restrictions as soon as it is safe to do so. Business travellers have been cancelling flights over concerns they could be trapped overseas.
John Holland-Kaye, the chief executive of Heathrow said: ‘By allowing Brits to isolate at home, Ministers can make sure they are reunited with their loved ones this Christmas.
‘It would send a strong signal that restrictions on travel will be removed as soon as safely possible to give passengers the confidence to book for 2022,
‘Make sure people can reunite at Christmas’
opening up thousands of new jobs for local people at Heathrow. Let’s reunite families for Christmas.’
Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, has called the restrictions a ‘waste of time’ because of Omicron’s rapid spread.
Last week, actor Richard E. Grant used social media videos to complain he felt ‘punished’ in £228-per-night hotel quarantine with ‘grim food’.
‘I feel like a pig s*** in my head’, he said. The Withnail star was caught by a change in Covid travel rules that put South Africa on the red list after a surge in Omicron rates in the country while he was visiting his 90-year-old mother.
Data suggests that cases of the coronavirus mutation are doubling every two or three days, putting it on course to overtake some of the 11 red list countries.