This comes after the local government experts had a meeting
with their UK counterparts over the red list of high-risk countries.
The island country has tighter travel restrictions in place
to reduce the introduction and transmission of new variants of COVID-19 from
countries that the UK government says should not be visited "except in the
most extreme of circumstances".
This means that travellers returning to the UK from South
Africa must spend 10 days in quarantine at their own expense, even though they
are vaccinated.
According to the department, the talks also included the
latest trends around COVID-19, testing strategies and the prevalence and risk
posed to our vaccination programmes by variants of concern.
The meeting was set up by the UK High Commission and the
South African government to ensure the most up-to-date and accurate sharing of
information.
"The insights provided will feed into the next review
of UK border measures, which is due to take place within the next
fortnight," the statement read.
The UK and local experts also discussed the recognition of
each other's vaccine certificates.
"The UK side explained that, following some initial
pilots, it was now seeking to extend its recognition of vaccine certificates
around the world as rapidly as possible."
According to the department's statement, the UK expressed
its willingness to take forward discussions with the SA government on this
matter.
Both governments said they support and recognise the
importance of vaccination as a way out of the pandemic.
"The UK expressed its gratitude to SA experts for their
willingness to share both data and expertise."
0 comments:
Post a Comment