Modelling the impact of travel restrictions on COVID-19 cases in Newfoundland and Labrador.

ABSTRACT: In many jurisdictions, public health authorities have implemented travel restrictions to reduce coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spread. Policies that restrict travel within countries have been implemented, but the impact of these restrictions is not well known. On 4 May 2020, Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) implemented travel restrictions such that non-residents required exemptions to enter the province. We fit a stochastic epidemic model to data describing the number of active COVID-19 cases in NL from 14 March to 26 June. We predicted possible outbreaks over nine weeks, with and without the travel restrictions, and for contact rates 40-70% of pre-pandemic levels. Our results suggest that the travel restrictions reduced the mean number of clinical COVID-19 cases in NL by 92%. Furthermo

SUBMITTER: Hurford A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8206704 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature