How effective are travel bans during a pandemic?

Tisch said travel bans have the potential to prevent the introduction of a new communicable disease into an area where it has not yet been transmitted.

“Travel restrictions are unlikely to be completely effective in preventing the introduction of a communicable disease,” he said. “But, there is some evidence that in certain situations they can slow the introduction and spread of transmission for a period of time.”

But travel bans don’t work in all situations, he said.

“Travel restrictions combined with a comprehensive public health strategy are more likely to be successful, especially in places that can maintain tighter entry controls, such as Australia and New Zealand,” Tisch said .

Tisch said allowing entry of a selected group, such as citizens, could defeat the purpose of the ban if there is no testing, quarantine or surveillance of the adequate diseases once people enter the country.

Additionally, if there is inadequate disease surveillance at the population level before the travel ban is implemented, it could give a false sense of security if the disease is already circulating locally, he said. note.

Regarding the travel bans for COVID-19, Hassig was even more pessimistic about their effectiveness, saying she felt they were not working.

“This virus moves quickly, asymptomatically,” she explained. “So stopping our travel from one or more regions will not prevent the virus from entering a place / country. “

“And, with COVID-19, we have seen time and again that bans are put in place too late, after the virus is already in the place of ban,” she added.

This leads the travel bans not to be as effective as we hoped.

Besides the fact that travel bans aren’t helping as much as we’d like, there are other issues with them, according to health experts we spoke with.

“Travel bans disrupt people’s lives, societal interactions and economies,” Tisch said.

“They can also be considered discriminatory by distinguishing certain countries / regions / populations,” he added. “The fact that Omicron was first reported in South Africa does not mean that it originated there or that it had not previously circulated to other countries and regions of the world.”

Tisch pointed out that travel bans rarely extend to reach all areas where the disease has been detected, which can lead to discrimination and marginalization of groups.

Additionally, localities may be penalized for being proactive in addressing public health needs, discouraging them from conducting public health research and communicating and collaborating with other countries.

“We have much better ways of containing the infection,” Hassig added, “but these measures require more effort from the place imposing the ban.”

Hassig suggests that steps such as screening incoming people no matter where they are from, pre-travel testing, quarantine on arrival, and retesting 3-5 days after arrival would be more. effective than travel bans.

“Frankly, I consider travel bans a ‘pandemic theater’, as do the street sanitation scenes from the start of the pandemic and the use of plexiglass barriers outside of healthcare and places like grocery store checkouts, ”she said.

“These are ‘tangible’ actions that may seem like but do little to actually prevent infection / transmission,” she added.

When asked if the travel bans were worth it despite their flaws, Hassig replied with a categorical “No”.

But Tisch was a little more cautious.

“The answer depends on the context and the situation at a particular place and time,” he said, stressing that “success depends on timing”.

“In cases where a communicable disease (or variant) is already circulating, a travel ban to prevent entry of the disease or variant will not be successful, and the impact on slowing transmission will depend on many epidemiological considerations. “, he added.