Javid was speaking in the House of Commons on Friday (26 November) about the sudden decision to place six countries, including South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe, on the red list from noon on Friday.
This requires travellers to go into hotel quarantine when arriving in the UK from 4am on Sunday (28 November).
Javid said the decision was necessary to protect the UK against a new variant of Covid, known as B.1.1.529, which was only identified in South Africa earlier this week.
Although he admitted the government “did not know enough yet” about the new variant and there was a “high degree of uncertainty”.
“We did not hesitate to take action because we will protect our borders when it comes to the pandemic,” added Javid.
“We are keeping this under review - there are very live discussions going on around whether we should and when we might add further countries [to the red list]. We won’t hesitate to act if we need to do so.”
Javid explained the new variant of concern had already been identified in both South Africa and Botswana and the other four neighbouring countries - Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe and Namibia – were going on the red list as a “precaution”. He added that no cases of the variant had been detected in the UK so far.
The health secretary also said it was “not possible” to give any timescale on how long the six southern African countries may remain on the red list.
“Such is the uncertainty around this variant and the rate at which it seems to be spreading, I’m afraid it’s not possible to put a timescale on this action,” added Javid.
Shadow health minister Alex Norris said Labour supported the government’s move to add the six African countries to the red list and added it was a “good call”.
“It brings us a reminder of the challenges this pandemic brings,” he said.
