BANNING TRAVEL FROM EUROPE: A DISTRACTION

There is no  strong evidence that travel bans work to stop the spread of the disease. Instead, travel restrictions can cause more harm than good by hindering info-sharing, medical supply chains and harming economies. These types of measures have been shown to be ineffective at halting the spread of viruses. At best, travel restrictions, and even airport screenings, delay pathogens from moving — but they don’t impact the number of people who eventually get sick. Rather, they make it harder for international aid and experts to reach communities affected by disease. They are also expensive, resource-intensive, and potentially harmful to the economies of cities and countries involved.

Instead of using airport screening and entertaining plans to seal borders, the governments of the world should focus their attention and resources on educating travelers about this new disease.

Experts pointed out that full-scale travel bans haven’t been effective. Italy, the hardest-hit country in Europe, was the first European country to ban travel to and from China, where the outbreak originated, and it didn’t help.

The virus is already in the United States, spreading locally. The big threat isn’t the virus coming to the United States. It’s already in the United States.  All of the evidence indicates that travel restrictions directed at individual countries are unlikely to keep the virus out of US borders. These measures may exacerbate the epidemic’s social and economic tolls and can make the US less safe. Respiratory viruses like the COVID-19 unlike others just move quickly. They are hard to spot because they look like many other diseases. It’s very difficult to stop them at the borders. You need a complete surveillance in order to do that in order to truly know which countries have active transmission and which don’t.

A modeling study published in Science magazine on March 6, “The effect of travel restrictions on the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak,” concluded that, “In areas affected by the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19), travel restrictions will only modestly impact the spread of the outbreak,” Based on the study’s results, the authors say the greatest benefit to mitigating the epidemic will come from public health interventions and behavioral changes that achieve a considerable reduction in the disease transmissibility – factors like early detection, isolation, and handwashing,” Moving forward we expect that travel restrictions to COVID-19 affected areas will have modest effects, and that transmission-reduction interventions will provide the greatest benefit to mitigate the epidemic,” the authors wrote.

30 days Travel Ban applies to the following countries:

1. Austria
2. Belgium
3. Czech Republic
4. Denmark
5. Estonia
6. Finland
7. France
8. Germany
9. Greece
10. Hungary
11. Iceland
12. Italy
13. Latvia
14. Liechtenstein
15. Lithuania
16. Luxembourg
17. Malta
18. The Netherlands
19. Norway
20. Poland
21. Portugal
22. Slovakia
23. Slovenia
24. Spain
25. Sweden
26. Switzerland.

30 days Travel Ban does Not apply for the following countries

1. United Kingdom
2. Ireland
3. Croatia
4. Romania
5. Bulgaria