3 ms·

Do not buy time by shutting down travel and use failed watch/wait approach again - also WHO.

incrudible 5y ago
Travel bans have never worked either. The variant almost certainly already reached community transmission in Northern Africa, they're just not reporting it. Travel bans reward this behavior. Furthermore, airports are good places to track and study infections. Assume that this variant will spread worldwide. We've already been through this with the wild type, with Beta and with Delta/Gamma.
shlant 5y ago
from what I understand, based on current evidence, travel restrictions will not do much at this point: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/11/28/1059619823/omicron-travel-bans-covid https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/1...
- OneTimePetes 5y ago
  Travel restrictions bought Taiwan and South Korea lots of time in the beginning. Other countries who usually follow scientific guidance have implemented them (israel). There seem to be no real papers linked to the base of this guidance, except that they feel like a attack on the freedom of movement for a globalist elite and the tourism industry. I rather prefer to be healthy and safe, then to put a blind eye to some elite favoured cultural blind spot. >Reply: Families are even less a reason to visit internationally in a global pandemic. Why should it be a right to bring a potentially deadly disease to your loved ones? Others cant visit there dying family in a hospital, why should one be granted exemption to visit the living?
  - mathverse 5y ago
    People dont travel just for leisure. Millions of people have families scattered all around the world.
  - uniqueuid 5y ago
    True, but Taiwan is an island and South Korea is a de-facto island. The effectiveness of travel restrictions will probably differ for countries with large and high-traffic land borders.
  - shlant 5y ago
    > Travel restrictions bought Taiwan and South Korea lots of time in the beginning They are islands and from what I understand travel restrictions are more relevant earlier in a pandemic > There seem to be no real papers linked to the base of this guidance There are a few in the article. Did you read it?
- derbOac 5y ago
  I'm a little confused by that article, to be honest. The Science paper they link seems to confirm that travel restrictions can have effect. Eg, from the abstract: " The travel quarantine of Wuhan delayed the overall epidemic progression by only 3 to 5 days in mainland China but had a more marked effect on the international scale, where case importations were reduced by nearly 80% until mid-February." My impression is that travel restrictions aren't a panacea, but can reduce or delay spread. (Whether or not they're appropriate with Omicron in particular seems to be a slightly different issue).
  - shlant 5y ago
    from what I understand travel restrictions are more effective earlier in the pandemic (as you pointed out from the Science paper) and less effective as the virus becomes ubiquitous.
Pxtl 5y ago
Because it has already spread world-wide in all likelihood, we just haven't noticed yet. Targeted travel bans are worthless and very few nations are willing to close borders altogether.

Travel bans have never worked either. The variant almost certainly already reached community transmission in Northern Africa, they're just not reporting it. Travel bans reward this behavior. Furthermore, airports are good places to track and study infections. Assume that this variant will spread worldwide. We've already been through this with the wild type, with Beta and with Delta/Gamma.

shlant 5y ago

from what I understand, based on current evidence, travel restrictions will not do much at this point: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/11/28/1059619823/omicron-travel-bans-covid https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/1...

OneTimePetes 5y ago
Travel restrictions bought Taiwan and South Korea lots of time in the beginning. Other countries who usually follow scientific guidance have implemented them (israel). There seem to be no real papers linked to the base of this guidance, except that they feel like a attack on the freedom of movement for a globalist elite and the tourism industry. I rather prefer to be healthy and safe, then to put a blind eye to some elite favoured cultural blind spot. >Reply: Families are even less a reason to visit internationally in a global pandemic. Why should it be a right to bring a potentially deadly disease to your loved ones? Others cant visit there dying family in a hospital, why should one be granted exemption to visit the living?
- mathverse 5y ago
  People dont travel just for leisure. Millions of people have families scattered all around the world.
- uniqueuid 5y ago
  True, but Taiwan is an island and South Korea is a de-facto island. The effectiveness of travel restrictions will probably differ for countries with large and high-traffic land borders.
- shlant 5y ago
  > Travel restrictions bought Taiwan and South Korea lots of time in the beginning They are islands and from what I understand travel restrictions are more relevant earlier in a pandemic > There seem to be no real papers linked to the base of this guidance There are a few in the article. Did you read it?
derbOac 5y ago
I'm a little confused by that article, to be honest. The Science paper they link seems to confirm that travel restrictions can have effect. Eg, from the abstract: " The travel quarantine of Wuhan delayed the overall epidemic progression by only 3 to 5 days in mainland China but had a more marked effect on the international scale, where case importations were reduced by nearly 80% until mid-February." My impression is that travel restrictions aren't a panacea, but can reduce or delay spread. (Whether or not they're appropriate with Omicron in particular seems to be a slightly different issue).
- shlant 5y ago
  from what I understand travel restrictions are more effective earlier in the pandemic (as you pointed out from the Science paper) and less effective as the virus becomes ubiquitous.

Pxtl 5y ago

Because it has already spread world-wide in all likelihood, we just haven't noticed yet. Targeted travel bans are worthless and very few nations are willing to close borders altogether.