EDITORIAL | Red list? It’s starting to look more like a blacklist

International relations and co-operation minister (Dirco) Naledi Pandor has expressed dismay at the UK’s bizarre decision to keep SA on its so-called Covid-19 red list. There is “no reasonable” basis for this; our government is “shocked” and “very disappointed”. A Dirco statement read: “Thousands of families and business people in SA and the UK are shocked at this continued exclusion, especially given SA’s progress in combating the Covid-19 pandemic, as evidenced by the rapid declining infection rates due to a robust vaccination programme and excellent science.”

According to the red list, anyone travelling from a country on the list needs to follow a set of rules upon entering the UK — “even if you have been fully vaccinated”. These rules include taking a Covid-19 test in the three days before travelling and booking a “quarantine hotel package, including two Covid-19 tests”. Sunday Times Daily columnist Tony Leon recently went through this ordeal, pointing out in his column the absurdity of it all: as he and his wife arrived in the UK, they were required to proceed to their “isolation” address on their own. “So, great though the theoretical risk might be that two high-risk South Africans might be carriers of the dread plague, we proceeded for three hours in two fairly crowded trains to the site of our isolation,” wrote Leon. 

He and his wife were also required to fill in a form on whether they had received a vaccination in the EU or the US. That the couple had received Pfizer vaccinations in SA, fully approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), was not taken into account since it was administered in the “wrong” country.

Yet in England, life has returned to near normal for one reason only — most of its citizens have been fully vaccinated. That is how safe British authorities consider the vaccine to be. But if it had been administered in SA, none of this counts. It’s ludicrous. What makes matters worse is that Egypt, Bangladesh, Turkey, Pakistan, Oman, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Kenya have been removed from the red list.

This shortsightedness came as US president Joe Biden announced on Monday that anyone who is fully vaccinated against Covid-19 will be allowed to travel to the US from anywhere in the world from November. The White House said travellers would need to prove their vaccination status and have a negative test taken in the three days preceding their trip. That is a sensible approach. Germany has also removed SA from its red list, dropping restrictions for those travelling from SA as long as they have been fully vaccinated for 14 days. It accepts SA’s standard vaccine card as proof of vaccination.

Dirco said in its statement at the weekend the minister was optimistic the UK government would realise its decision not only harmed the tourism industry, but also other businesses from both countries. SA needs to do more than being optimistic — our leaders need to apply pressure on Britain to follow in the footsteps of the US. The current restrictions are unfair, unjust and very costly to an already crippled tourism industry that was banking on visitors from the UK over the festive season.