All countries are being removed from England's Covid travel red list, the government has announced.
After South Africa raised the alarm of the new Omicron variant, 11 African countries were put onto the red list, forcing travelling to take three Covid tests and pay for a 10 day quarantine hotel.
Only last month countries including Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe were added.
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Transport Secretary Grant Shapps confirmed today that all countries will be removed from the red list from 4am on Wednesday December 15.
He announced the change on Twitter but added that all testing measures will remain in place.
The UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid explained to MPs that the red list was not as effective due to the fact that the new variant is spreading vastly in the UK already.
The UK Health Security Agency has said that 200,000 people may have been infected with the variant in the UK yesterday.
Javid told MPs: "So I can announce today that whilst we'll maintain our temporary testing measures for international travel, we will be removing all 11 countries from the travel red list effective from 4am tomorrow."
Now all vaccinated travellers will have to take a day 2 PCR test and isolate until in shows a negative result.
However, SAGE experts warn that it is not enough.
Shapps also added: "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."
It has yet to be confirmed if Scotland will also adopt this action.
Today, the First Minister announced new rules for hospitality to bring back social distancing and limit the amount of mixed household gatherings.
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