Switch Table Mountain’s red light outcry to a go-for-green. Secretary of State for transport of the UK Grant Shapps has announced that our country, along with 46 others, will no longer be on the UK’s ‘Red List’ which prohibits travel into the country. This will be effective from Monday, October 11.
“Restoring people’s confidence in travel is key to rebuilding our economy and levelling up this country. With less restrictions and more people travelling, we can all continue to move safely forward together, along our pathway to recovery,” says Shapps.
UPDATE: From Monday (11th Oct) ? I’ll be cutting 47 destinations from our red list – including South Africa, with just 7 countries and territories remaining ⚠️ – all others will be included in the “rest of world” category ? [1/3]
— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) October 7, 2021
This means that entry to the UK will no longer be restricted to British and Irish Nationals and Permanent Residents of the UK.
Furthermore, travellers from the following African countries will not have to enter hotel managed quarantine on arrival in England:
- Botswana
- Burundi
- Democratic Republic of Congo
- Eritrea
- Eswatini
- Ethiopia
- Lesotho
- Malawi
- Mozambique
- Namibia
- Reunion
- Rwanda
- Seychelles
- Sierra Leone
- Somalia
- South Africa
- Sudan
- Tanzania
- Uganda
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
Seven destinations, including Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela, will remain on the list.
“Eligible travellers, vaccinated in more than 37 new countries and territories, including Brazil, Ghana, Hong Kong, India, Pakistan, South Africa, and Turkey, will also be treated the same as returning fully vaccinated UK residents, so long as they have not visited a red list country or territory in the 10 days before arriving in England.
“Eligible fully vaccinated passengers and eligible under-18s, returning from countries and territories not on the red list, can do so with just a day two test.
“Other passengers, who are not fully vaccinated with an authorised vaccine, returning from a non-red destination, must still take a pre-departure test, a day two and day eight test, and complete 10 days of self-isolation (with the option of Test to Release on day five),” gov.uk revealed.
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