Why Britain removed Nigeria, 10 other countries from its travel red list

British Airways

Given the outcry from Nigeria and many affected countries, Britain has removed Nigeria and 10 other African countries from its red list. They are Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

According to the UK Health Secretary, Sajid Javid who explained the reason on Tuesday, the Omicron variant of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) “has spread so widely that red listing countries no longer had many purposes.”

“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.

“Whilst we will maintain our temporary testing measures for international travel we will be removing all 11 countries from the travel red list effective from 4 am tomorrow morning,” Javid said while addressing parliament

Britain and some Western countries recently gave a travel ban on some countries, including Nigeria and the 10 listed above. It generated a heated debate that almost culminated in diplomatic face-offs. That was as a result of the break out of the Omicron variant of Covid-19.