The other countries are Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The countries were put on the red list last month as a precaution after scientists in South Africa identified the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
Meanwhile, British Boris Johnson has survived a huge parliamentary rebellion by his own party over new COVID-19 restrictions.
Almost 100 Conservative MPs defied his last minute plea for support leaving him reliant on opposition Labour party votes to get the measures through.
Labour leader Keir Starmer says Johnson’s authority is severely damaged.
“It confirms that he’s too weak to discharge the basic functions of government. These public health measures would not have gone through if Labour hadn’t shown the leadership that the Prime Minister failed to show just as we needed decisive decisions in this pandemic. Worst possible leader of the worst possible time.”
Restrictions
Travel companies had urged the government to reduce restrictions as soon as possible. London’s Heathrow Airport said last week it was seeing high levels of business travellers cancelling over concerns that they could get trapped overseas by changing restrictions.
Britain will still require all inbound travellers to take either a PCR or a rapid lateral flow test a maximum of 48 hours before departure.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said these testing measures would be reviewed in the first week of January.
“As always, we keep all our travel measures under review and we may impose new restrictions should there be a need to do so to protect public health,” he said on Twitter.
Arrivals from the red list countries have had to pay thousands of pounds to stay in government-approved quarantine hotels. Many have taken to social media to complain about the costs and conditions of their stay, including posting pictures of unappetising-looking food.
A lack of available rooms had also left some people trapped abroad waiting for space to become available in the quarantine hotels.
In the video below, London correspondent Giles Gibson gives more details:
