4 ms·

Closing borders isn't easy. Most of the time there are still ways you can cross, so instead of having known routes where you can test and treat accordingly, yo

by bpfrh 7y ago

Closing borders isn't easy. Most of the time there are still ways you can cross, so instead of having known routes where you can test and treat accordingly, you have an unknown number of people crossing the border on unknown points and spreading the virus in unknown regions.

dredmorbius 7y ago
The point of epidemiological containment is to reduce the R value such that R<1. Once this is done, eventually, inevitably, the epidemic will burn out. Yes, more people will become infected, yes, some will die. But the level of person-to-person transmission will have fallen below the level necessary for the epidemic to sustain itself, and it will slowly decline and fade out. Perfect containment, 100% effective vaccines, 100% vaccination rates, (neither of which apply here: there is not yet a vaccine), 100% travel and contact curtailment, 100% sanitation, 100% filtration, are not required. Only sufficiently effective methods to reduce transmission. Of which, strong, effective, and widespread travel restrictions within or from epidemic zones are a very sensible tool.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  Excellent comment and too bad it is this far down the thread.
est31 7y ago
The virus doesn't spread because of a natural effect, but because infected people travel and take the virus with them. The speed of the spread is as fast as the fastest method of travel. If we have FTL travel, it travels faster than light. If we have airplanes, it travels as fast as them. So even if you don't watch land borders, shutting down airplane traffic to a country is highly useful: the virus cases are isolated to the border region of your country, and you can focus your attention to that part. Usually there is already infrastructure to close down land borders for cars and similar. So why not use that infrastructure? Besides stomping out the few cases inside its own borders or preventing travel from affected regions, it's the most useful measure a country can take. After that there are only inside country prevention methods, like curfews, forbidding car usage, etc.

by bpfrh 7y ago

dredmorbius 7y ago

The point of epidemiological containment is to reduce the R value such that R<1. Once this is done, eventually, inevitably, the epidemic will burn out. Yes, more people will become infected, yes, some will die. But the level of person-to-person transmission will have fallen below the level necessary for the epidemic to sustain itself, and it will slowly decline and fade out. Perfect containment, 100% effective vaccines, 100% vaccination rates, (neither of which apply here: there is not yet a vaccine), 100% travel and contact curtailment, 100% sanitation, 100% filtration, are not required. Only sufficiently effective methods to reduce transmission. Of which, strong, effective, and widespread travel restrictions within or from epidemic zones are a very sensible tool.

jacquesm 7y ago
Excellent comment and too bad it is this far down the thread.

est31 7y ago

The virus doesn't spread because of a natural effect, but because infected people travel and take the virus with them. The speed of the spread is as fast as the fastest method of travel. If we have FTL travel, it travels faster than light. If we have airplanes, it travels as fast as them. So even if you don't watch land borders, shutting down airplane traffic to a country is highly useful: the virus cases are isolated to the border region of your country, and you can focus your attention to that part. Usually there is already infrastructure to close down land borders for cars and similar. So why not use that infrastructure? Besides stomping out the few cases inside its own borders or preventing travel from affected regions, it's the most useful measure a country can take. After that there are only inside country prevention methods, like curfews, forbidding car usage, etc.