Country distancing increase reveals the effectiveness of travel restrictions in stopping COVID-19 transmission

Abstract

Non-pharmaceutical interventions are the current central strategy to stop transmitting the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) globally. Despite remarkably successful approaches in predicting the ongoing pandemic's spatiotemporal patterns, we lack an intrinsic understanding of the travel restrictions' efficiency and effectiveness. We fill this gap by examining the countries' closeness based on disease spread using country distancing that is analogical to the effective resistance in series and parallel circuits and captures the propagation backbone tree from the outbreak locations globally. Our method estimates that 53.6\% of travel restrictions as of June 1, 2020, are ineffective. Our analytical results unveil that the optimal and coordinated travel restrictions postpone per geographical area by 22.56 [95\% credible interval (CI), 18.57 to 26.59] days of the disease's arrival time and protect the world by reducing 1,872,295 (95\% CI, 216,029 to 23,606,312) infected cases till June 1, 2020, which are significantly better than the existing travel restrictions achieving 12.87 (95\% CI, 10.59 to 15.17) days of arrival time delay and 861,867 (95\% CI, 238,250 to 3,879,638) infected cases reduction. Our approach offers a practical guide that indicates when and where to implement travel restrictions, tailed to the real-time national context.

Evaluating an e-Learning Program to Strengthen the Capacity of Humanitarian Workers in the MENA Region: The Humanitarian Leadership Diploma

“…Professionals working in this eld experienced signi cant advantages to traditional learning such as having enough exibility to plan for their work-study schedule and to better manage when and where they attend the courses as it ts them. Importantly, because this course aimed to target humanitarian actors across the MENA region, this would not have been possible to do had it been delivered in-person because of challenges traveling across countries 45,46 ; considering the lockdowns and movement restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, travel would have also been di cult within-country. With this exibility, participants reported being able to better self-pace and to have the ability to stop and resume lessons as needed.…”

Border closure and travel restrictions to control the spread of COVID-19: an update to a Cochrane review

“…Similar to the Cochrane review, 3 we did not attempt to differentiate between a complete border closure versus travel restrictions (leading to varying degrees of difficulty in crossing borders), and instead report these in a combined intervention category. Studies reported on (1) 'cases avoided due to the measure' (n = 30), [6][7][8][9][10][12][13][14]16,[18][19][20][21][23][24][25]28,29,[32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39]41,42,46,47 (2) the shift in epidemic development (n = 19), 8,10,11,14,15,17,18,21,22,26,27,30,31,36,40,42,44,45,48…”

“…Five new studies 37,38,41,42,47 was identified in the updated search. In total, we included 17 modelling studies, 7,9,10,12,14,16,18,19,21,25,33,[35][36][37][38]41,42,47 with most (n = 13) reporting fewer new cases (1.8% 10 to 97.8% 18 ) with travel restrictions; four studies 25,33,36,37 reported no significant positive effect (very low certainty evidence).…”

“…Four new studies 18,44,45,48 were identified in the updated search. In total, we included 10 modelling studies, 8,15,17,18,22,26,36,44,45,48 with most reporting benefits (e.g., <1 day 8 to 26 weeks 48 ) with travel restrictions; three studies 17,36,44 reported mixed results (very lowcertainty evidence).…”

Vaccination and three non-pharmaceutical interventions determine the end of COVID-19 at 381 metropolitan statistical areas in the US

“…are often loosened and re-tightened without rigorous empirical evidence. Methodologies, from randomized controlled trials 5 , econometric methods 10,11 to mathematical models [12][13][14][15][16][17][18] , have been developed to measure the effects of these NPIs. But many of the methodologies cannot be used without predicting the pandemic when the NPIs are adjusted.…”