Bans on flights from red list countries are a form of ‘travel apartheid’, the Archbishop of Canterbury said yesterday.
Justin Welby criticised the UK’s red list ban on eleven African countries as ‘morally wrong and self-defeating’.
His comments came as the World Health Organisation (WHO) and top scientists hit out at travel restrictions as ‘pointless’ and ‘too late’ as ‘Omicron is already everywhere’.

Justin Welby criticised the UK’s red list ban on eleven African countries as ‘morally wrong and self-defeating’ (file image)
Presently, visitors from African countries who want to travel to the UK are required to be quarantined on arrival in order to prevent the spread of the latest strain.
‘We must find fair and effective approaches for those who are vaccinated and tested to enter the UK… we cannot have “travel apartheid”,’ Mr Welby said. ‘It is also morally wrong – and self-defeating – to punish nations for being transparent when they discover new Covid variants,’ he added.
It came as Dr Hans Kluge, the WHO’s regional director for Europe, said: ‘Disease outbreaks are contained at their source, not at their borders.’
Meanwhile, Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, said: ‘The official estimates are about 350-odd Omicron cases.
‘And because the current testing is missing a lot of those, it’s probably at least 1,000 to 2,000.’
He added that in ten days’ time the UK may have ‘more cases’ than those on the red list.