‘A kick in the teeth’ – Tourism woes to continue as SA stays on UK red list

Travel between the United Kingdom (UK) and South Africa will remain restricted after the UK kept South Africa on its red list of countries.

Travellers from red list countries are banned from entering the UK.

The UK revised the list on Friday, removing eight countries – but South Africa was kept on, meaning travellers from the country are banned from entering the UK.

Egypt, Kenya, Bangladesh, Turkey, Pakistan, Oman, Maldives and Sri Lanka were taken off the list.

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The UK has until now used a traffic light system to rank countries according to the Covid-19 risk each nation might pose.

Travellers from the green list could travel freely, while those on the amber list were required to quarantine for 10 days if they are not fully vaccinated.

The UK’s Transport Secretary Grant Shapps on Friday said the amber and green lists will be scrapped from 4 October, leaving a single red list. He added that the red list will remain, but it has been downsized.

In addition, EIGHT countries and territories will come off the red list 🔴 from Weds 22 Sept at 4am, incl. TURKEY, PAKISTAN and MALDIVES.

— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) September 17, 2021

Trade and tourism

The travel restrictions have severely impacted trade and tourism between South Africa and the UK.

At least 450,000 British passport holders travel to the country per year.  

Inbound travel body, the Southern Africa Tourism Services Association (Satsa), said more 1.5 million local livelihoods are at risk if the restrictions continues. The World Travel and Tourism Council also warned that South Africa’s economy stands to lose R181 million a week if it remains on the red list.

ALSO READ: Petitions of no use in getting South Africa off British govt’s travel red list

On 5 August, Satsa started a petition to convince UK authorities to move South Africa to the amber list. The British government, however, said that South Africa would be kept on the red list because “it is considered a high public health risk to the UK from known variants of concern”.

‘A kick in the teeth’

Satsa labelled the decision on Friday “a kick in the teeth for 1.5 million South African tourism workers” and called on more people to sign its petition.

This is a kick in the teeth for 1.5 million South African tourism workers who were relying on UK visitors this spring. There isn’t a shred of scientific evidence to support keeping #SouthAfrica on the #redlist. Get us to 100k https://t.co/GRR913CWHw

— SATSA (@satsa_sa) September 17, 2021

Tulio de Oliveira, director of the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP), was also critical of the UK’s decision, calling it “really unscientific”.

“Many European countries allow travel from South Africa… we have a smaller number of infections than the UK, similar variant dominating, advanced genomic surveillance, and transparency on science and policy. So why this discrimination?” he added.

Really unscientific decision on keeping South Africa on the red list of travel from the U.K. Fact 1 – SA is one of the most vaccinated countries in Africa. Fact 2 – SA has advanced genomics surveillance (more advanced than many of the countries not on the red list) 1/5 tweets

— Tulio de Oliveira (@Tuliodna) September 17, 2021

Really unscientific decision on keeping South Africa on the red list of travel from the U.K. Fact 3 – Number of daily infections are 10x less than U.K. (30k UK vs 3k SA). Fact 4 – Variants are the same (99% Delta in SA and 99% in the UK) 2/5 tweets

— Tulio de Oliveira (@Tuliodna) September 17, 2021

Really unscientific decision on keeping South Africa on the red list of travel from the U.K. Fact 5 – Transparency of science driving the pandemic response (more than the UK). 3/5 Tweets

— Tulio de Oliveira (@Tuliodna) September 17, 2021

Really unscientific decision on keeping South Africa on the red list of travel from the U.K. Fact 6 – U.K. has exported more infections out of the country than SA (Alpha variant spread more than Beta) and more Delta was widely exported from U.K. 4/5 Tweets

— Tulio de Oliveira (@Tuliodna) September 17, 2021

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