Ministers are facing growing criticism for putting France on the new “amber plus” travel list after concerns were raised about whether they zeroed in a lot on variation cases in its Réunion Island domain 5,700 miles (9,180 km) from Paris.

The UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, conceded on Thursday the choice to force harder limitations on a huge number of completely immunized French residents and Britons holidaying or living across the Channel was incomplete because of the commonness of the Beta variation on Réunion.

He safeguarded the move, saying it was “not the distance that is important” but instead “the simplicity of movement between various segment portions of any individual country”.

France was put on England’s amber plus list fourteen days prior after the public authority accepted counsel from the Joint Biosecurity Center (JBC).

At that point, the explanation given by the Department of Health and Social Care was the “determined presence of cases in France of the Beta variation”, yet a conciliatory line with France started gathering pace.

In a harsh rebuke of the JBC, Mary Gregory, a delegate director at the Office for Statistics Regulation, kept in touch with the association, reprimanding it for “not making the information and sources understood” for its recommendation on France.

She said there was disarray about “whether cases from abroad regions had been barred for France” and that refusals to distribute obvious proof supporting the choice “miss the mark regarding our assumptions on straightforwardness”.

Gregory said the JBC had affirmed one of the manners in which it followed variations was the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (Gisaid), which displayed there had been 1,023 Beta cases in Réunion – equivalent to about 33% of the absolute number found across terrain France, 2,974.

Réunion is as yet on England’s typical amber rundown even though the proportion of Beta cases to individuals is a lot higher, conceding anybody going from the island who has completely immunized exclusion from detachment on appearance since they get two negative tests.

The Gisaid figures uncovered the number of Beta cases across France had developed by only 1.9% in the previous month – altogether not as much as Spain, where they have risen 14.2% across a similar period.

Sir David Spiegelhalter, who sits on the public authority’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said it was clear Raab had recognized the choice on France was principally founded on information from Réunion and that this ought to have been clarified at that point.

Spiegelhalter said the thinking for putting France on the amber plus list “was indistinct, most definitely”, adding that “the information behind such significant strategy choices ought to be straightforwardly accessible”.

Information gathered from arbitrary examples of positive tests showed Beta pervasiveness tumbled from about 7% in late April to 2.8% before the finish of June in territory France, as indicated by that distributed by French experts on 19 July. Just days sooner did UK ministers conclude that explorers getting back to England from France would be forced to isolate regardless of whether completely immunized.

Sylvia Richardson, the director of the MRC biostatistics unit at the University of Cambridge and leader of the Royal Statistical Society, said she began investigating the information when the UK choice on isolate strategy was declared. “I had some doubt that there was some disarray,” she said, adding that the UK government ought to have met with the French specialists before settling on its choice.

Before 19 July, French specialists were distributing information on variation predominance for terrain France and its regions as one number – yet the geological contrasts constrained them to distribute the numbers on territory France independently.

Jim McMahon, the shadow transport secretary, said the traffic signal framework was astounding to the point “that ministers were “befuddling themselves”.

Layla Moran, a Liberal Democrat MP and seat of the all-party parliamentary gathering on Covid, said there was disjointedly informing about the purposes behind the choice and encouraged ministers to spread out “clear defenses for any progressions made concerning global travel”.

France on Wednesday hit out at England’s choice to make it the solitary EU country barred from new principles permitting completely inoculated explorers poked on the mainland or in the US to stay away from isolation if coming from an amber rundown country.

Europe serves, Clément Beaune, said it was “extreme”, revealing to France’s LCI TV: “It’s honestly limitless on wellbeing grounds. It’s not founded on science and is discriminatory towards the French. I trust it will be investigated quickly; it’s the simple presence of mind.”