March 12, 2020 - 11:55am
President Donald Trump has announced (sort of) a travel ban (sort of) from Europe (or parts of it). It’s attracted a lot of commentary about his motives: he’s covering his own back, he’s panicking, he’s applying his generic nativist rubber-stamp “build a wall” policy in all situations. What I haven’t seen much of is people asking: will it work?
In my last piece I quoted Dr Cassidy Nelson of the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford, speaking at length on the 80,000 Hours podcast, which I strongly recommend. I spoke to her quickly this morning.
She says that immensely draconian travel bans in ideal situations — ending more than 90% of travel from the affected country — could delay the outbreak peak by about three weeks. That sounds good — we’re all keen on flattening the curve — but, she says, in this case, it’s highly unlikely to work.
First, that implies that there’s only one affected country. The new travel ban affects Europe. One of the worst affected countries, Italy, is in Europe, but the virus is all over the world. And 90% is an incredibly high level with vast economic impacts so it is very unlikely to happen. A 40% reduction would apparently slow it by about three days or less.
Secondly, it creates perverse incentives. If travel is banned from mainland Europe to the US, but not from mainland Europe to the UK and from UK to the US, then people wanting to flee to (or get home to!) the US are incentivised to fly to Heathrow first then home.
“I imagine you’d get people routed through Heathrow,” Dr Nelson says. “The US government is trying to get airlines to find out where people were in the last 48 hours but at the moment there’s no system in place. If you came from Italy to Heathrow and got a ticket to DC, there’s no way the airline will know.”
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SubscribeIf international travel bans won’t work, will local ones, such as people not leaving their homes if infected, or as in Italy whole villages and towns in lock-down?
Tom, this article is not as informed as your usual.
The travel ban just instituted by the great President Trump does not apply to the EU as such. Actually it applies to the Schengen zone specifically. For example, Romania and Bulgaria are not included. This is logical, because there are not even any facilities for controlling movement of people between Schengen countries, but there are between Schengen and non-Schengen countries. For example, when I drive from Hungary to Romania, the border guards always check my passport.
You say “…people wanting to flee to (or get home to!) the US are incentivised to fly to Heathrow first then home.” But actually, irrespective of the passport he holds, a person arriving in the USA from the UK (for example) will be asked whether he has been within the Schengen zone within the last two weeks. If he has, he can try lying, but if he is caught out, which could happen (the US Government has many means of information), he would immediately be clapped into jail, and quite right too.
If Trump had not banned travel from Wuhan before anyone had even died from this virus in the US, many more would have died by now. And had both Obama and Trump not issued travel bans for obvious reasons from certain countries, there would probably have been more terror incidents in the US by now.
Travel bans most assuredly do work, and there will be a lot more of them going forward, because it will be the only way for some countries to survive.
Reducing volumes of foreign, potentially flu-afflicted patients entering the U.S. makes (some) sense. Half- and three-quarters- measures is about all we have available to us (canceling all those big events … I think I saw most of those kids in New York bars last night). Incremental measures are O.K. Banning travel from China … come on, that had to have some beneficial effects. The clinical trial we can now never run: Serious travel bans, for the whole world, implemented on 2/1/20, and left in place for 6-to-8 weeks, that would have protected America significantly. This idea of, “well, it’s going to get us all eventually” … I just don’t buy that. “Social distancing” and canceling NBA, NHL, MLB, NCAA, etc. “good! ” but banning (read: “limiting,” “constraining,” “slowing”) ” “meh,” that just doesn’t add up for me. And I remain pretty optimistic that we’ll get through this O.K.
Have you now sent your memo to the rest of the world or was it just your dislike of Trump and your ideology that made you write this unscientific article? Every country other than China got their first cases from people crossing their borders with it. Even when a country has internal transmission of the virus it makes no sense to continue to bring in new cases of the virus.