I fear that red-countries and quarantines are just a means for governments to keep one one hand on future restrictions. The fear they can still generate about variants coming from abroad still seems to be enough to keep a significant proportion of the population under control & compliant. And as we have seen from the restrictions in coming back from France, they don't even need scary new variants to keep the façade going, older ones too can have a similar impact, even when they are popping up on islands thousands of miles away.
I think that most people have seen through the codswollop about France and the Reunion Beta variant. But unfortunately most people unthinkingly swallow the party line about restrictions being a 'necessary' evil.
Edit: new post below
Several changes to the classification of countries coming at 4am on Sunday:
Moving from amber to green: Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Slovakia, Latvia, Romania and Norway
Moving from red to amber: India, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE
Moving from amber to red: Georgia, Mexico, La Reunion and Mayotte
Moving from amber-plus to amber: France
Most all as expected, though I'm pleasantly surprised to see some Central European destinations in the green list for the first time in a long while. Still a requirement for a day 2 PCR test though, which really needs to go (even if the rest of this malarky 'has to' stay).
Of course, the government wastes no opportunity to bury bad news, quietly announcing a near ⅓ increase in the cost of the 10 day stay 'at Her Majesty's pleasure' for red-list countries. Going up from £1750 to £2285.
Given that these charges are quite possibly unlawful under the International Health Regulations which the government signed up to (there's an ongoing legal challenge on that front) they really have some cheek doing this. And that's quite aside from the morality of taxing citizens 1 or 2 months' wages to enter their own country.