Should international borders re-open? The impact of travel restrictions on COVID-19 importation risk

BMC Public Health

Kamran Najeebullah¹  Ahmad El Shoghri²  Raja Jurdak³  Jessica Liebig⁴  Dean Paini⁵ 

[1] Data61, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Brisbane, Australia;Data61, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Brisbane, Australia;School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia;Data61, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Brisbane, Australia;School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia;Health & Biosecurity, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Brisbane, Australia;Health & Biosecurity, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Canberra, Australia;

关键词: COVID-19;    Travel restrictions;    Infectious disease spread;    Disease modelling;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12889-021-11616-9

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundNovel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has spread across the world at an unprecedented pace, reaching over 200 countries and territories in less than three months. In response, many governments denied entry to travellers arriving from various countries affected by the virus. While several industries continue to experience economic losses due to the imposed interventions, it is unclear whether the different travel restrictions were successful in reducing COVID-19 importations.MethodsHere we develop a comprehensive probabilistic framework to model daily COVID-19 importations, considering different travel bans. We quantify the temporal effects of the restrictions and elucidate the relationship between incidence rates in other countries, travel flows and the expected number of importations into the country under investigation.ResultsAs a cases study, we evaluate the travel bans enforced by the Australian government. We find that international travel bans in Australia lowered COVID-19 importations by 87.68% (83.39 - 91.35) between January and June 2020. The presented framework can further be used to gain insights into how many importations to expect should borders re-open.ConclusionsWhile travel bans lowered the number of COVID-19 importations overall, the effectiveness of bans on individual countries varies widely and directly depends on the change in behaviour in returning residents and citizens. Authorities may consider the presented information when planning a phased re-opening of international borders.

【 授权许可】

CC BY