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

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  • Additional Information
    • Source:
      Publisher: BioMed Central Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 100968562 Publication Model: Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1471-2458 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 14712458 NLM ISO Abbreviation: BMC Public Health Subsets: MEDLINE
    • Publication Information:
      Original Publication: London : BioMed Central, [2001-
    • Subject Terms:
    • Abstract:
      Background: Novel 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.
      Methods: Here 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.
      Results: As 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.
      Conclusions: While 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.
      (© 2021. The Author(s).)
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    • Contributed Indexing:
      Keywords: COVID-19; Disease modelling; Infectious disease spread; Travel restrictions
    • Publication Date:
      Date Created: 20210821 Date Completed: 20210826 Latest Revision: 20210826
    • Publication Date:
      20240104
    • Accession Number:
      PMC8378112
    • Accession Number:
      10.1186/s12889-021-11616-9
    • Accession Number:
      34416860