Phaahla ‘optimistic’ SA will be removed from UK’s so-called red list

Earlier this month, the UK announced that travellers from Africa and other selected countries will all be considered unvaccinated and will have to test and quarantine for 10 days despite being vaccinated in their home countries.

Phaahla told the media on Sunday that UK scientists believed South Africa was not transparent about its Covid-19 statistics.

“The issue which they are raising as their reason, they think that we are not giving all the information about the Covid-19 statistics and they still believe that we have a dominant of the Beta variant of the Covid-19, whereas the whole country is dominated by the Delta.

“Because they are using AsraZenecca vaccine, which was found to be very weak in Beta variant,” said Phaahla.

He believes the country will be removed from the list following recent discussions between the two countries.

“Our scientists have met with the British scientists and they have exchanged information, And I am also going to be meeting with the minister of health.

“We believe that after the interactions they will understand that SA is not a risk in the sense that we are rolling on vaccination and we are also on top of the situation in terms of monitoring all the variants.

“I think with all that information, we are very optimistic, so we need to give them all the information, we believe that we will be taken off from the red list.”

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