Quarantine and testing strategies to ameliorate transmission due to travel during the COVID-19 pandemic: a modelling study.

ABSTRACT: Numerous countries imposed strict travel restrictions, contributing to the large socioeconomic burden during the COVID-19 pandemic. The long quarantines that apply to contacts of cases may be excessive for travel policy. We developed an approach to evaluate imminent countrywide COVID-19 infections after 0-14-day quarantine and testing. We identified the minimum travel quarantine duration such that the infection rate within the destination country did not increase compared to a travel ban, defining this minimum quarantine as "sufficient." We present a generalised analytical framework and a specific case study of the epidemic situation on November 21, 2021, for application to 26 European countries. For most origin-destination country pairs, a three-day or shorter quarantine with RT-PCR or an

SUBMITTER: Wells CR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8562544 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature