London's Heathrow Airport is one of the few in the world continuing to allow unrestricted international arrivals. The British government says it will soon require travelers to quarantine for 14 days.Kirsty O'Connor/PA Images via Getty Images
found that more than three-quarters of the world's nations and territories have suspended travel from at least one other place.Restrictions are often promoted by politicians as a sign of strength in efforts to halt the spread of the new coronavirus. But experts say the border closures have done little to stop it. And going forward, they say, travel restrictions will play only a small role in containing the virus.
"The purpose is to prevent disease but to do so in a way that provides the least restriction on international traffic and commerce," Meier says. WHO initially advised against travel and trade restrictions, but it has since softened its stance, at least somewhat."WHO will update recommendations on appropriate travel measures and analyze their effects on international transmission of COVID-19," a statement supplied to NPR reads in part.
He says he thinks travel restrictions may be helpful, particularly for countries that are small and can easily control their borders such as islands. "For the U.S. to say that we can eliminate all virus in the country and then shut down all the borders so that no virus comes in would be completely off base," Grubaugh says. Domestic travelers from local hot spots will require other regions to keep watch for new infections for a long time to come."There's so many pockets where virus can be found."
Well, it’s pretty clear that the virus was spread by infected people travelling to other countries. Travel is how the disease spread. So, how would restricting travel not be an appropriate response?
No need to read any further than 'an analysis by NPR.' They are nothing more than a publicly funded media office for the Democrat Party.
Keep borders open but also, stay at home?
Guatemala shut its borders down, (3/16) only four days after the first case was detected (3/12). They now have only 30 deaths in a country of almost 18 million people.
vegix It worked very well in Australia & New Zealand
Interesting but it’s still Trumps fault how the virus got over here. I am being sarcastic TrumpSupporter
Tell that to China who closed travel to and fro the Wuhan epicenter yet allowed travel from their epicenter to every other nation to ‘spread it far and wide’ while protecting Beijing
Air and SEA ports are ALSO border points. The closing of these ports has been a great windbreak AGAINST Covid-19. For how long can this be sustained Nobody knows !
Crimea is part of Ukraine. The map is wrong.
Uh-huh. SURE! Tell NZ that, where every case has been traced, & daily reports have shown the numbers due to intl travel, known cfusters, & community transmission. We all know that peak new cases were when peak numbers were returning to NZ from overseas.
This is just perfect, because Trump’s one claim to fame in his handling of the Coronavirus is that he “shut down the border with China”, yes I know we don’t share a border with China, his words.
Beijing closed its border to people from Wuhan at the start of pandemic. Beijing wasn't affected much but the rest of china was. Seems effective.
One can only wonder why the government is so keen on getting parents to sign over their children since they consider brown people petri dishes of disease? Someone should be looking into their weird obsession with that, please and thank you!
Lmao how dumb do you think we are?
Let’s vet travelers from the most infected countries via NPR studios.
Because sick travelers (especially if they're asymptomatic carriers) will always get through before a ban goes into effect.
realDonaldTrump GOP once again science wins over your lies
So that means we can travel wherever we want.
Translation: Trump is bad and Trumps travel restrictions were immoral and we write about some other countries to obfuscate that this article and headline are just about anti-Trump propaganda.
Wonder what American Samoa has to say about this
Willing to go with my gut on this over NPR's so called experts