- fact-checking team
- BBC News
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After Beijing announced the end of the new crown “clearing” policy, some countries have launched epidemic prevention measures for inbound tourists from China, including testing and isolation.
China announced that it will begin to relax border control measures from January 8. This is the first time since March 2020 that mainland China has opened its borders to allow Chinese citizens to travel abroad.
Since China relaxed the epidemic prevention policy, the new crown epidemic has broken out like a tsunami. Countries such as Canada, the United States, France, Spain and the United Kingdom have adopted restrictive measures for Chinese inbound passengers to present negative nucleic acid results upon arrival or to quarantine positive passengers.
Mao Ning, spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said at a press conference on January 3: “Some countries adopt entry restriction measures that only target China. There is no scientific basis, and some excessive practices are even more unacceptable.”
Are travel restrictions effective in preventing the spread of the virus?
Beijing condemns travel restrictions targeting China, WHO calls for sharing epidemic data
What happened in the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak?
During the epidemic, Australia implemented the strictest travel restrictions in the world. From 2020, Canberra has closed its borders to non-residents and banned Australians from traveling overseas (with a few exceptions).
Some countries, such as the United Kingdom, are relatively lenient, requiring international passengers to be quarantined in a special hotel and undergo testing upon arrival.
After the start of the 2020 Pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it did not support travel bans in general because they were “generally ineffective”.
“Travel measures that significantly disrupt international traffic may only be justified in the early stages of an outbreak, as they may buy countries time,” the World Health Organization said.
The World Health Organization has again warned against a blanket travel ban after the emergence of the Omecro variant, saying it would not stop the global spread of Omecro.
“(Travel bans) may discourage countries from reporting and sharing epidemic and sequencing data, thereby adversely affecting global health efforts…,” the World Health Organization said.
image source,Getty Images
What does the WHO say now?
He said the WHO needed more detailed information to understand the possible risks posed by the situation on the ground in China.
He added on Twitter: “In the absence of comprehensive information from China, it is understandable for countries around the world to act in ways they believe can protect their people.”
Will travel restrictions work?
Professor Andrew Pollard, head of the Oxford Vaccine Group, told BBC News: “Attempts to stop the virus (spread) by adjusting travel policy have proven ineffective.”
“We’ve seen that travel bans introduced by countries during the pandemic have not stopped the virus from eventually spreading around the world.”
The word “eventually” is important here because studies have shown that travel restrictions tend to only delay the spread of a virus in a country, but not completely stop it.
One of the report’s authors, Karen Grepin of the University of Hong Kong, told BBC Fact Check that “we’ve learned during the pandemic that universal measures that apply to all travelers, not just travelers from certain countries More effective than targeted measures, such as targeting travelers from China.”
“The only travel restrictions that have proven effective during a pandemic are those that include prolonged quarantines, and I don’t think there’s a lot of interest in that at the moment.”
image source,Reuters
What other studies are there?
A study of travel restrictions and death rates in more than 180 countries by Germany’s WZB Berlin Center for Social Sciences came to similar conclusions, adding:
- A country can have the greatest impact when it bans travel before recording fewer than 10 deaths
- Quarantine of all travelers is more effective than banning entry (in some cases, entry bans do not apply to returning citizens of the country)
Another scientist who advises the UK government, Professor Mark Woolhouse, told BBC Fact Check that restrictions on travelers arriving in the UK from China would not do much to try to control the number of Covid-19 cases in the UK itself.
“There are too many cases in the UK at the moment and importing cases won’t make a big difference,” he said.
What about the new mutant strain?
Some say travel restrictions will prevent potential new variants from entering the UK.
But Professor Woolhouse said that if a mutated strain had already emerged, it would be too late for travel restrictions.
“It’s almost certainly passed in here,” he said.
“Such measures can only work if mutations occur during the period in which (travel restrictions) are in place. Even then, they can only delay, not prevent, the introduction of mutated strains.”
Furthermore, it is no more likely that the new variant came from China than from anywhere else in the world.
“While China is clearly experiencing a major outbreak, there is no reason to doubt that this wave will be a melting pot for the emergence of new strains,” Professor Woolhouse said.
“It’s at least possible that the next variant will be in a completely different place – there are currently about 4 million cases reported per week worldwide (of course, the unreported number is much larger). Why focus only on China?”
However, the World Health Organization said it was concerned that China had not shared information about the surge in infections within its borders, including whether new variants had emerged.
“Measures targeting Chinese travelers may feel more like a political statement in response to a lack of information sharing than a sincere attempt to advance public health,” said Catherine Worsnop of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy.