The impact of earlier reopening to travel in the Western Pacific on SARS-CoV-2 transmission
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a fall of over 70% in international travel, resulting in substantial economic damages. The impact is especially pronounced in the Asia-Pacific region, where governments have been slow to relax border restrictions. Methods: A retrospective approach was use...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
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2024
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/173654 |
| _version_ | 1826124745812213760 |
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| author | Jin, Shihui Lim, Jue Tao Dickens, Borame Lee Cook, Alex R. |
| author2 | Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine) |
| author_facet | Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine) Jin, Shihui Lim, Jue Tao Dickens, Borame Lee Cook, Alex R. |
| author_sort | Jin, Shihui |
| collection | NTU |
| description | Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a fall of over 70% in international travel, resulting in substantial economic damages. The impact is especially pronounced in the Asia-Pacific region, where governments have been slow to relax border restrictions. Methods: A retrospective approach was used to construct notional epidemic trajectories for eight Asia-Pacific countries or regions, from June to November 2021, under hypothetical scenarios of earlier resumption of international travel and selective border reopening. The numbers of local infections and deaths over the prediction window were calculated accordingly. Results: Had quarantine-free entry been permitted for all travellers from all the regions investigated, and travel volumes recovered to the 2019 levels, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore would have been the three most severely affected regions, with at least doubled number of deaths, while infections would have increased marginally (< 5%) for Japan, Malaysia, and Thailand. Conclusions: Earlier resumption of travel in Asia-Pacific, while maintaining a controlled degree of importation risk, could have been implemented through selective border-reopening strategies and on-arrival testing. Once countries had experienced large, localized COVID-19 outbreaks, earlier relaxation of border containment measures would not have resulted in a great increase in morbidity and mortality. |
| first_indexed | 2024-10-01T06:25:25Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | ntu-10356/173654 |
| institution | Nanyang Technological University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-10-01T06:25:25Z |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | ntu-10356/1736542024-02-25T15:38:08Z The impact of earlier reopening to travel in the Western Pacific on SARS-CoV-2 transmission Jin, Shihui Lim, Jue Tao Dickens, Borame Lee Cook, Alex R. Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine) Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, NUS Medicine, Health and Life Sciences Border measures Quarantine Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a fall of over 70% in international travel, resulting in substantial economic damages. The impact is especially pronounced in the Asia-Pacific region, where governments have been slow to relax border restrictions. Methods: A retrospective approach was used to construct notional epidemic trajectories for eight Asia-Pacific countries or regions, from June to November 2021, under hypothetical scenarios of earlier resumption of international travel and selective border reopening. The numbers of local infections and deaths over the prediction window were calculated accordingly. Results: Had quarantine-free entry been permitted for all travellers from all the regions investigated, and travel volumes recovered to the 2019 levels, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore would have been the three most severely affected regions, with at least doubled number of deaths, while infections would have increased marginally (< 5%) for Japan, Malaysia, and Thailand. Conclusions: Earlier resumption of travel in Asia-Pacific, while maintaining a controlled degree of importation risk, could have been implemented through selective border-reopening strategies and on-arrival testing. Once countries had experienced large, localized COVID-19 outbreaks, earlier relaxation of border containment measures would not have resulted in a great increase in morbidity and mortality. Ministry of Education (MOE) Published version This work was supported by Singapore’s Ministry of Education (through a Tier-1 grant) and the National University of Singapore (through a Reimagine Research grant). 2024-02-21T01:45:47Z 2024-02-21T01:45:47Z 2023 Journal Article Jin, S., Lim, J. T., Dickens, B. L. & Cook, A. R. (2023). The impact of earlier reopening to travel in the Western Pacific on SARS-CoV-2 transmission. IJID Regions, 6, 135-141. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijregi.2022.11.013 2772-7076 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/173654 10.1016/j.ijregi.2022.11.013 36466213 2-s2.0-85150808289 6 135 141 en IJID Regions © 2022 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of International Society for Infectious Diseases. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) application/pdf |
| spellingShingle | Medicine, Health and Life Sciences Border measures Quarantine Jin, Shihui Lim, Jue Tao Dickens, Borame Lee Cook, Alex R. The impact of earlier reopening to travel in the Western Pacific on SARS-CoV-2 transmission |
| title | The impact of earlier reopening to travel in the Western Pacific on SARS-CoV-2 transmission |
| title_full | The impact of earlier reopening to travel in the Western Pacific on SARS-CoV-2 transmission |
| title_fullStr | The impact of earlier reopening to travel in the Western Pacific on SARS-CoV-2 transmission |
| title_full_unstemmed | The impact of earlier reopening to travel in the Western Pacific on SARS-CoV-2 transmission |
| title_short | The impact of earlier reopening to travel in the Western Pacific on SARS-CoV-2 transmission |
| title_sort | impact of earlier reopening to travel in the western pacific on sars cov 2 transmission |
| topic | Medicine, Health and Life Sciences Border measures Quarantine |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/173654 |
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