Government Response

The Government responded to this petition on Monday 23rd August 2021

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.

Egypt was added to the red list of high-risk countries on 08 June 2021 with enhanced travel restrictions, because COVID-19 prevalence in Egypt was assessed to be high and there was evidence to suggest community transmission of variants of concern. The government took this decisive action to impose additional measures on Egypt to limit the importation of variants of concern to England and to protect the roll out of the COVID-19 vaccination programme at a critical time.

These measures permit entry to only British and Irish Nationals (and third country nationals with residence rights in the UK) arriving from high-risk (known as red list) countries and are also required to quarantine in government managed hotels. These are all temporary measures that are kept under regular review and the government maintains that they will only be kept in place whilst the level of risk justifies the measures.

On 17 May 2021, the Government introduced the traffic light system to provide a framework for a safe and sustainable return to international travel. The traffic light system categorises countries and territories based on risk to protect public health and the vaccine rollout from variants of COVID-19. The traffic light system categorises countries based on risk to protect public health and the vaccine rollout from variants of COVID-19. The Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC) produces risk assessments of countries and territories. Decisions on red, amber or green list assignment and associated border measures are taken by Ministers, who take into account the JBC risk assessments, alongside wider public health factors.
Key factors in the JBC risk assessment of each country include:

o genomic surveillance capability

o COVID-19 transmission risk

o Variant of Concern transmission risk

A summary of the JBC methodology is published on gov.uk, alongside key data that supports Ministers' decisions. The summary of the JBC methodology is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-risk-assessment-methodology-to-inform-international-travel-traffic-light-system and the data is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/data-informing-international-travel-risk-assessments.

Country allocations to the traffic light system are reviewed every three weeks, unless concerning evidence means we need to act faster to protect public health. At the last review on 4 August, it was decided that Egypt should remain on the red list because Egypt has very low testing and very low sequencing such that there is a potential for high public health risk to the UK, and has high-risk variants under investigation.

We will not compromise on the progress we have made on our vaccine programme by allowing people to freely mix abroad and return or travel to the UK without proper checks and procedures. This is just the start for opening international travel, with the UK leading the way with a robust system.

As with all our coronavirus measures, we keep the red list under regular review and our priority remains to protect the health of the UK public.

Department for Transport