England to lift travel ban on southern African nations
British Transport Secretary Grant Schapps announced Tuesday that England will remove all southern African nations from its travel red list.
After the omicron variant was first discovered in South Africa and Botswana in November, several countries around the world, including England and the United States, imposed travel bans on a swath of nations in southern Africa.
The World Health Organization warned that blanket travel bans will not prevent the international spread of omicron, deemed a "variant of concern," and that restrictions place a heavy burden on lives and livelihoods.
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The countries of Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe will be taken off England's travel red list on Wednesday at 4 a.m. GMT, according to Schapps, who noted that all current testing measures remain in place.
"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," Schapps wrote on Twitter Tuesday.
Despite the travel bans, the heavily mutated variant has taken a foothold in London. British Health Secretary Sajid Javid told Parliament on Monday that omicron accounts for more than 44% of COVID-19 infections in the U.K. capital and it's expected to become the dominant variant there by Wednesday, overtaking the highly contagious delta variant.
Addressing Parliament again on Tuesday, the health secretary called omicron "a grave threat" and said the "race" to get as many people vaccinated and boosted "is new national mission."
"Scientists have never seen a COVID-19 variant that’s capable of spreading so rapidly," Javid said.
-ABC News' Christine Theodorou