“Red list travel restrictions to Southern Africa are unfair and are inflicting real social, environmental and economic hardship on families, businesses and ecosystems with no scientific justification given, and should therefore be removed,” it states.
In a lengthy response to the petition, the UK government’s department for transport said ministerial decisions on allocations to the red list “are informed by the latest scientific data and public health advice, to protect public health and the vaccine rollout from variants of concern.
“From 24 December 2020, visitors arriving into England who had departed from or transited through SA in the previous 10 days were prohibited, following evidence suggesting community transmission of new variants of concern.
“The government took this decisive action to impose additional measures on SA to prevent further domestic infection in the UK. These measures excluded commercially operated aircraft carrying no passengers and aircraft…
