Omicron: UK Lifts Travel Ban On 11 African Countries

The United Kingdom has announced plans to lift the travel ban it imposed on 11 African countries in response to the detection of the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus across the continent in late November 2021 we can confirm. The UK Health Secretary, Sajid Javid announced the decision to lift the ban starting Wednesday morning while addressing members of the British Parliament on Tuesday.

You will recall that in a move that the African Centre for Disease (CDC) at the time referred to as an "unscientific knee-jerk travel bans against Africa," The United Kingdom, as well as other Western nations like the United States and Canada, slammed a ban on a number of African countries in late November, citing the need to control of the Omicron as the reason why the countries were placed on a red list.

Addressing the British Parliament on Tuesday, Javid said that the United Kingdom was removing all the countries previously placed on the COVID-19 travel red list starting on Wednesday, explaining that since there is now community transmission of Omicron in the Uk, and the travel ban will no longer help.

"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," the Health Minister said.

"We will be removing all 11 countries from the travel red list effective from 4 a.m. tomorrow morning," he announced.

Notwithstanding the lift of the ban, the UK still requires travellers coming into the country to take a COVID-19 test a maximum of 48 hours before travelling to the UK.

The Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus was first detected in Hong Kong and South Africa. In a swift response, the British government placed 11 African countries on its COVID-19 travel red list. The 11 affected countries were Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.