Abstract
BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has elicited imposition of some form of travel restrictions by almost all countries in the world. Most restrictions currently persist, although some have been gradually eased. It remains unclear if the trade-off from the unprecedented disruption to air travel was well worth for pandemic containment.MethodA comparative analysis was conducted on Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea’s COVID-19 response. Data on COVID-19 cases, travel-related and community interventions, socio-economic profile were consolidated. Trends on imported and local cases were analyzed using computations of moving averages, rate of change, particularly in response to distinct waves of travel-related interventions due to the outbreak in China, South Korea, Iran & Italy, and Europe.ResultsSouth Korea’s travel restrictions were observed to be consistently more lagged in terms of timeliness and magnitude, with their first wave of travel restrictions on flights departing from China implemented 34 days after the outbreak in Wuhan, compared to 22–26 days taken by Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong. South Korea’s restrictions against all countries came after 91 days, compared to 78–80 days for the other three countries. The rate of change of imported cases fell by 1.08–1.43 across all four countries following the first wave of travel restrictions on departures from China, and by 0.22–0.52 in all countries except South Korea in the fifth wave against all international travellers. Delayed rate of change of local cases resulting from travel restrictions imposed by the four countries with intrinsic importation risk, were not observed.ConclusionsTravel restriction was effective in preventing COVID-19 case importation in early outbreak phase, but may still be limited in preventing general local transmission. The impact of travel restrictions, regardless of promptness, in containing epidemics likely also depends on the effectiveness of local surveillance and non-pharmaceutical interventions concurrently implemented.
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemic has elicited imposition of some form of travel restrictions by almost all countries in the world
South Korea’s travel restrictions were observed to be consistently more lagged in terms of timeliness and magnitude, with their first wave of travel restrictions on flights departing from China implemented 34 days after the outbreak in Wuhan, compared to 22–26 days taken by Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong
The rate of change of imported cases fell by 1.08–1.43 across all four countries following the first wave of travel restrictions on departures from China, and by 0.22–0.52 in all countries except South Korea in the fifth wave against all international travellers
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic has elicited imposition of some form of travel restrictions by almost all countries in the world. It remains unclear if the trade-off from the unprecedented disruption to air travel was well worth for pandemic containment. The limitations of travel bans are often only well elucidated through mathematical modelling papers [5]. Quantitative evaluation of their effectiveness is hindered by the inconsistent implementation of other nonpharmaceutical measures adapted to suit different nations. The implementation of travel bans to limit importation risk may seem intuitive theoretically, but is a highly disruptive, costly and resource-intensive measure to implement in reality [10,11,12]. Robust local control is more likely able to reduce virus transmission [3, 6], as travel restrictions are often implemented belatedly
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