S. The African government is urged to clarify the list of high-risk countries for COVID-19

The opposition on Tuesday called for clarity on the criteria used by the government to draw up the COVID-19 red list that comprises the countries that South Africa considers high risk for international travel.

This came after the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) reviewed the list of high-risk countries for COVID-19 on Monday, which now stands at 22, down from the initial 60.

While the number of countries is shrinking, the list now includes countries such as Germany, the United States and Canada, which are among the most important source markets for tourism in South Africa, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said in a statement.

As was the case last time, the revised red list appears to have been arbitrarily drawn as there is no correlation with the latest global COVID-19 statistics, the DA said.

The red list prohibits people from high-risk countries from visiting South Africa, except those who fall into the following categories: business travelers, critical skills visa holders, investors, and people on international mission in sports, arts, culture and science.

DHA did not say what criteria it used to determine which country is high risk.

“If the criteria used to draw up this list were the total deaths per country, then countries like Ecuador would have been included in the list, since it has more deaths than Canada, which was added to the red list,” said Manny de Freitas, shadow minister of DA. of Tourism.

Turkey and Bolivia with more deaths and are not on the red list, but the Netherlands with fewer deaths than those two countries remain on the list, De Freitas said.

The same can be said of the statistics of deaths per million inhabitants such as Bolivia and Chile that rank fourth and sixth respectively in this category but are not on the red list, while countries like Bangladesh at number 46 have been added to the list. list, according to De Freitas.

The DA is of the opinion that the red list should be replaced by a simpler and more economically beneficial system.

Such a system should allow all people to enter across South African borders on the condition that they produce a recent negative COVID-19 test that would have been performed in the country of origin, the DA maintains.

In the case of countries that were not previously on the red list and were added this week, such as Germany (with a low per capita death rate compared to the other countries on the red list), tourists in those markets that have holidays planned in South Africa now has to suddenly cancel or postpone its tourism activities, De Freitas said.

Information received by the DA from tourism experts indicates that the uncertain and inexplicable red list will completely wreck the tourism sector in South Africa within a few weeks, according to De Freitas. Final product