Has the effectiveness of Australia's travel bans against China on the importation of COVID-19 been overestimated?
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: McLure A
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7665588 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Has the effectiveness of Australia's travel bans against China on the importation of COVID-19 been overestimated?
McLure Angus A Lau Colleen L CL Furuya-Kanamori Luis L
Journal of travel medicine 20210201 2
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Project description:ObjectiveFollowing the outbreak of novel Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), and the disease named COVID-19, in Wuhan, China in late 2019, countries have implemented different interventions such as travel bans to slow the spread of this novel virus. This brief report evaluates the effect of travel bans imposed to prevent COVID-19 importation in the Australian context.MethodsWe developed a stochastic meta-population model to capture the global dynamics and spread of COVID-19. By adjusting our model to capture the travel bans imposed globally and in Australia, the predicted COVID-19 cases imported to Australia were evaluated in comparison to observed imported cases.ResultsOur modelling results closely aligned with observed cases in Australia and elsewhere. We observed a 79% reduction in COVID-19 importation and a delay of the COVID-19 outbreak in Australia by approximately one month. Further projection of COVID-19 to May 2020 showed spread patterns depending on the basic reproduction number.ConclusionImposing the travel ban was effective in delaying widespread transmission of COVID-19. However, strengthening of the domestic control measures is needed to prevent Australia from becoming another epicentre. Implications for public health: This report has shown the importance of border closure to pandemic control.
| S-EPMC7405030 | biostudies-literature
Project description:This paper examines the effect of government responses of G7 countries to the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) on stock market returns. Using time-series data, we show that lockdowns, travel bans, and economic stimulus packages all had a positive effect on the G7 stock markets. However, lockdowns were most effective in cushioning the effects of COVID-19. Our results are robust to different measures of returns and controls for other factors of returns.
| S-EPMC7440077 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The Covid-19 pandemic negatively affected many sectors including aviation and travel. Travel bans and forced lockdowns prevented transportation activity, especially air travel. Accordingly, huge amounts of emission reductions occurred. On the other hand, travel restrictions are not the only cause of emissions reductions. Changing travel intention in the era of Covid-19 is another important factor that affects aviation emissions. This paper aims to investigate the Landing/Take-Off (LTO) emission changes at Turkish airports. An emission inventory has been implemented for the years 2019 and 2020 to reveal the impacts of Covid-19 on aviation emissions. Domestic, international, and cargo flights have been included in the inventory. According to the results, total emissions of SO2, CO2, CO, NOx, NMVOC, CH4, N2O, and PM2.5 have decreased in 2020 compared to 2019 by 49.8%, 49.7%, 41.0%, 52.6%, 40.0%, 33.8%, 49.8%, and 50.3%, respectively. Total CO2 reductions in the Q2, Q3, and Q4 periods of 2020 compared to that of 2019 are 87%, 50% and 43%, respectively. Another aim of this paper is to find the underlying reasons for emission reductions. For Turkish airports, emission reductions have resulted from travel bans in Q2. After the relaxation of restrictions with the declaration of the "New Normal" in Turkey, flight traffic rebounded to a certain level but was lower than 2019 levels. Therefore, changing travel intention is the main cause of emission reductions in Q3 and Q4 of 2020. The results of this study contribute to both the areas of air pollution and tourism management.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10668-023-02916-8.
| S-EPMC9928588 | biostudies-literature
Project description:We consider models for the importation of a new variant COVID-19 strain in a location already seeing propagation of a resident variant. By distinguishing contaminations generated by imported cases from those originating in the community, we are able to evaluate the contribution of importations to the dynamics of the disease in a community. We find that after an initial seeding, the role of importations becomes marginal compared to that of community-based propagation. We also evaluate the role of two travel control measures, quarantine and travel interruptions. We conclude that quarantine is an efficacious way of lowering importation rates, while travel interruptions have the potential to delay the consequences of importations but need to be applied within a very tight time window following the initial emergence of the variant.
| S-EPMC8272889 | biostudies-literature
Project description:On 30 January 2020, WHO declared coronavirus (COVID-19) a global public health emergency. As of 12 March 2020, 125 048 confirmed COVID-19 cases in 118 countries had been reported. On 12 March 2020, the first case in the Pacific islands was reported in French Polynesia; no other Pacific island country or territory has reported cases. The purpose of our analysis is to show how travellers may introduce COVID-19 into the Pacific islands and discuss the role robust health systems play in protecting health and reducing transmission risk. We analyse travel and Global Health Security Index data using a scoring tool to produce quantitative estimates of COVID-19 importation risk, by departing and arriving country. Our analysis indicates that, as of 12 March 2020, the highest risk air routes by which COVID-19 may be imported into the Pacific islands are from east Asian countries (specifically, China, Korea and Japan) to north Pacific airports (likely Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands or, to a less extent, Palau); or from China, Japan, Singapore, the United States of America or France to south Pacific ports (likely, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, French Polynesia or New Caledonia). Other importation routes include from other east Asian countries to Guam, and from Australia, New Zealand and other European countries to the south Pacific. The tool provides a useful method for assessing COVID-19 importation risk and may be useful in other settings.
| S-EPMC7113321 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundNovel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has spread across the world at an unprecedented pace, reaching over 200 countries and territories in less than three months. In response, many governments denied entry to travellers arriving from various countries affected by the virus. While several industries continue to experience economic losses due to the imposed interventions, it is unclear whether the different travel restrictions were successful in reducing COVID-19 importations.MethodsHere we develop a comprehensive probabilistic framework to model daily COVID-19 importations, considering different travel bans. We quantify the temporal effects of the restrictions and elucidate the relationship between incidence rates in other countries, travel flows and the expected number of importations into the country under investigation.ResultsAs a cases study, we evaluate the travel bans enforced by the Australian government. We find that international travel bans in Australia lowered COVID-19 importations by 87.68% (83.39 - 91.35) between January and June 2020. The presented framework can further be used to gain insights into how many importations to expect should borders re-open.ConclusionsWhile travel bans lowered the number of COVID-19 importations overall, the effectiveness of bans on individual countries varies widely and directly depends on the change in behaviour in returning residents and citizens. Authorities may consider the presented information when planning a phased re-opening of international borders.
| S-EPMC8378112 | biostudies-literature
Project description:With more countries exiting lockdown, public health safety requires screening measures at international travel entry points that can prevent the reintroduction or importation of the severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus-2. Here, we estimate the number of cases captured, quarantining days averted and secondary cases expected to occur with screening interventions. To estimate active case exportation risk from 153 countries with recorded coronavirus disease-2019 cases and deaths, we created a simple data-driven framework to calculate the number of infectious and upcoming infectious individuals out of 100 000 000 potential travellers from each country, and assessed six importation risk reduction strategies; Strategy 1 (S1) has no screening on entry, S2 tests all travellers and isolates test-positives where those who test negative at 7 days are permitted entry, S3 the equivalent but for a 14 day period, S4 quarantines all travellers for 7 days where all are subsequently permitted entry, S5 the equivalent for 14 days and S6 the testing of all travellers and prevention of entry for those who test positive. The average reduction in case importation across countries relative to S1 is 90.2% for S2, 91.7% for S3, 55.4% for S4, 91.2% for S5 and 77.2% for S6. An average of 79.6% of infected travellers are infectious upon arrival. For the top 100 exporting countries, an 88.2% average reduction in secondary cases is expected through S2 with the 7-day isolation of test-positives, increasing to 92.1% for S3 for 14-day isolation. A substantially smaller reduction of 30.0% is expected for 7-day all traveller quarantining, increasing to 84.3% for 14-day all traveller quarantining. The testing and isolation of test-positives should be implemented provided good testing practices are in place. If testing is not feasible, quarantining for a minimum of 14 days is recommended with strict adherence measures in place.
| S-EPMC7499710 | biostudies-literature
Project description:IntroductionSince September 2020, Chinese populations aged > 3 years have been encouraged to receive a two-dose inoculation with vaccines against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This study aims to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the current vaccination strategy amongst the general population in mainland China from a societal perspective.MethodsIn this study, we construct a decision tree with Markov models to compare the economic and health consequences of the current vaccination strategy versus a no-vaccination scenario, over a time horizon of one year and an annual discount rate of 5%. Transition probabilities, health utilities, healthcare costs, and productivity losses are estimated from literature. Outcome measures include infection rates, death rates, quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), and costs. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) is then calculated to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the current vaccination strategy, and both one-way deterministic sensitivity analysis and probabilistic sensitivity analysis (PSA) are applied to assess the impact of uncertainties on results.ResultsOur simulation indicates that compared with a no-vaccination scenario, vaccination amongst the general population in mainland China would reduce the infection rate from 100% to 45.3% and decrease the death rate from 6.8% to 3.1%. Consequently, the strategy will lead to a saving of 37,664.77 CNY (US$5,256.70) and a gain of 0.50 QALYs per person per year on average (lifetime QALY and productivity loss due to immature death are included). The cost-saving for each QALY gain is 74,895.69 CNY (US$10,452.85). Result of the PSA indicates that vaccination is the dominating strategy with a probability of 97.9%, and the strategy is cost-effective with a probability of 98.5% when the willingness-to-pay (WTP) is 72,000 CNY (US$10,048.71) per QALY.ConclusionCompared with a no-vaccination scenario, vaccination among the general population in mainland China is the dominating strategy from a societal perspective. The conclusion is considered robust in the sensitivity analyses.
| S-EPMC10027744 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ObjectiveAs the potential spread of COVID-19 sparked by imported cases from overseas will pose continuous challenges, it is essential to estimate the effects of control measures on reducing the importation risk of COVID-19. Our objective is to provide a framework of methodology for quantifying the combined effects of entry restrictions and travel quarantine on managing the importation risk of COVID-19 and other pandemics by leveraging different sets of parameters.MethodsThree major categories of control measures on controlling importation risk were parameterized and modelled by the framework: 1) entry restrictions, 2) travel quarantine, and 3) domestic containment measures. Integrating the parameterized intensity of control measures, a modified SEIR model was developed to simulate the case importation and local epidemic under different scenarios of global epidemic dynamics. A web-based tool was also provided to enable interactive visualization of epidemic simulation.ResultsThe simulated number of case importation and local spread modelled by the proposed framework of methods fitted well to the historical epidemic curve of China and Singapore. Based on the simulation results, the total numbers of infected cases when reducing 30% of visitor arrivals would be 88·4 (IQR 87·5-89·6) and 58·8 (IQR 58·3-59·5) times more than those when reducing 99% of visitor arrivals in mainland China and Singapore respectively, assuming actual time-varying Rt and travel quarantine policy. If the number of global daily new infections reached 100,000, 85%-91% of inbound travels should be reduced to keep the daily new infected number below 100 for a country with a similar travel volume as Singapore (daily 52,000 tourist arrivals in 2019). Whereas if the number was lower than 10,000, the daily new infected case would be less than 100 even with no entry restrictions.DiscussionsWe proposed a framework that first estimated the intensity of travel restrictions and local containment measures for countries since the first overseas imported case. Our approach then quantified the combined effects of entry restrictions and travel quarantine using a modified SEIR model to simulate the potential epidemic spread under hypothetical intensities of these control measures. We also developed a web-based system that enables interactive simulation, which could serve as a valuable tool for health system administrators to assess policy effects on managing the importation risk. By leveraging different sets of parameters, it could adapt to any specific country and specific type of epidemic.ConclusionsThis framework has provided a valuable tool to parameterize the intensity of control measures, simulate both the case importation and local epidemic, and quantify the combined effects of entry restrictions and travel quarantine on managing the importation risk.
| S-EPMC8102072 | biostudies-literature
Project description:During the coronavirus disease pandemic, international travel controls have been widely adopted. To determine the effectiveness of these measures, we analyzed data from 165 countries and found that early implementation of international travel controls led to a mean delay of 5 weeks in the first epidemic peak of cases.
| S-EPMC8714230 | biostudies-literature