idw – Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Nachrichten, Termine, Experten

Grafik: idw-Logo
Science Video Project
idw-Abo

idw-News App:

AppStore

Google Play Store



Instance:
Share on: 
08/03/2020 13:55

Evaluating the effectiveness of travel bans

Ansa Heyl Presse- und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

    With the reopening of flights during the summer holiday season in Europe, many countries have started to see an increase in COVID-19 infections. A new IIASA-led study sheds light on how COVID-19 spreads regionally and between countries, as well as on how effective governmental measures to curb the spread of the pandemic have been to date.

    The current COVID-19 pandemic has prompted countries around the world to institute travel bans restricting the influx of visitors from especially countries where the spread of the virus is still rampant. Such restrictions, as well as other measures put in place by governments to curb the spread of COVID-19, have been heavily criticized in both political and public debate, prompting many to wonder how effective current measures aimed at reducing the spread of the pandemic really are. To address this uncertainty, IIASA researchers examined how the virus is spread regionally as well as between countries, and how this develops over time. The study’s surprising results have been published in Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences.

    According to the authors, the majority of studies about transmission of COVID-19 tend to focus on specific countries. This study however, explored a much wider cross-section of countries and used approaches more commonly applied to estimate regional transmission of economic quantities (such as GDP or trade). The main questions that the researchers wanted to address were, on the one hand, whether governmental measures have actively been reducing the cross-border transmission of COVID-19 cases and, on the other hand, which channels were the main sources of transmission across national borders.

    “Back in January this year, the virus was often seen as a Chinese and later an Italian problem. Due to the rapid spread of COVID-19 across the globe, however, almost all Western countries reacted by employing measures to contain or delay the spread of the virus,” explains study lead author Tamás Krisztin, a researcher in the IIASA Ecosystems Services and Management Program. “It is important to model daily infection counts across countries to assess the effectiveness of government measures such as border closures and flight suspensions, and also to estimate scenarios of what the infection rate would look like if such measures were not taken.”

    The results indicate that cross-country transmission processes, specifically via international flight connections, played a particularly important role in the early stages of the virus’ spread and that the shutdown of international airports and border closures were indeed important policies to prevent further spillovers across countries. It appears that governments, who took early action to reduce cross-border air passenger traffic, did in fact do the right thing to prevent the spread of infection. The research also supports anecdotal evidence that countries that delayed closing their borders to air traffic have higher infection rates.

    Also interesting to note is the fact that the spread between countries could mostly be explained by international flight connections between them, rather than shared borders (land-travel transmission). The researchers point out that this could also explain why Austria was relatively more affected by the virus than, for instance, neighboring countries in Eastern Europe, even though they share land borders with Austria.

    “In the face of decreasing public appetite for travel restrictions, and understandable concern over the economic consequences of drastic lockdown measures, we want to support and strengthen the decisions taken by European and most other governments in this regard. The policies they introduced appear to have played a particular role in reducing COVID-19 cases, flattening the curve, relieving stress on the healthcare system and, ultimately, saving lives,” says Krisztin.

    The researchers caution that as governments reopen cross-border air traffic, they should carefully evaluate where they allow flights to, and which regions they accept flights from. The scale of this traffic should also be carefully calibrated and continually monitored. The study clearly demonstrates that cross-border air traffic is a very important channel for spread of COVID-19, and as opposed to land travel where the spread is geographically limited, air traffic allows the virus to jump countries and continents in a very short time.

    Reference
    Krisztin T, Piribauer P, & Wögerer M (2020). The spatial econometrics of the coronavirus pandemic. Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences DOI: 10.1007/s12076-020-00254-1

    Contacts:

    Researcher contact
    Tamás Krisztin
    Research Scholar
    IIASA Ecosystems Services and Management Program
    Tel: +43 2236 807 516
    krisztin@iiasa.ac.at

    Press Officer
    Ansa Heyl
    IIASA Press Office
    Tel: +43 2236 807 574
    Mob: +43 676 83 807 574
    heyl@iiasa.ac.at

    About IIASA:

    The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is an international scientific institute that conducts research into the critical issues of global environmental, economic, technological, and social change that we face in the twenty-first century. Our findings provide valuable options to policymakers to shape the future of our changing world. IIASA is independent and funded by prestigious research funding agencies in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. www.iiasa.ac.at


    Images

    Criteria of this press release:
    Journalists, all interested persons
    Nutrition / healthcare / nursing, Social studies, Traffic / transport
    transregional, national
    Research results
    English


     

    Help

    Search / advanced search of the idw archives
    Combination of search terms

    You can combine search terms with and, or and/or not, e.g. Philo not logy.

    Brackets

    You can use brackets to separate combinations from each other, e.g. (Philo not logy) or (Psycho and logy).

    Phrases

    Coherent groups of words will be located as complete phrases if you put them into quotation marks, e.g. “Federal Republic of Germany”.

    Selection criteria

    You can also use the advanced search without entering search terms. It will then follow the criteria you have selected (e.g. country or subject area).

    If you have not selected any criteria in a given category, the entire category will be searched (e.g. all subject areas or all countries).