QUARANTINE ‘RED LIST’ SCRAPPED

HOTEL quarantine for travellers arriving in England will be abandoned, Health Secretary Sajid Javid has announced.

The Cabinet minister told the Commons that the 11 countries on the red list will be removed at 4am on Wednesday. The list was resurrected last month in a bid to reduce the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant.

People arriving in the UK from 11 African countries such as South Africa, Nigeria and Zambia have been required to spend 11 nights in a quarantine hotel at a cost of £2,285 for solo travellers. Mr Javid said the spread of Omicron in the UK and the world means the travel red list is “now less effective in slowing the incursion of Omicron from abroad”.

He told MPs: “Whilst we’ll maintain our temporary testing measures for international travel, we will be removing all 11 countries from the travel red list effective from 4am tomorrow.”

He went on: “Those people already in managed quarantine, I’m told that the practice in the past on this has been requiring them to complete their quarantine period. However, I do understand the importance of that and I have asked for urgent advice about what this means and I hope to act very quickly on just that.”

Tim Alderslade, chief executive of industry body Airlines UK, claimed the decision to remove all countries from the red list “makes complete sense but doesn’t go nearly far enough”. He said: “If the red list isn’t necessary given that Omicron is established here at home, then neither are the costly emergency testing and isolation measures imposed on even fully vaccinated travellers, which again put us completely at odds with the rest of Europe. It is testing that is the deterrent to travel, not the relatively limited red list.”

Travellers entering the UK are required to take a pre-departure test and self-isolate until they receive a negative result from a post-arrival test.

Mr Alderslade warned that the key Christmas and New Year booking period will be “undermined” unless testing rules are eased.

“This is make or break for UK aviation and if Government is unable to row back from these restrictions over the New Year, it will need to step in with further economic support for a sector that again has been singled out.”