Governments urged to make data-driven Covid decisions

THE International Air Transport Association (IATA) has urged governments to make data-driven decisions to manage the risks of Covid-19 when reopening borders to international travel. Strategies without quarantine measures can enable international travel to restart with a low risk of introduction of Covid-19 to the travel destination.

“Data can and should drive policies on restarting global travel that manages Covid-19 risks to protect populations, revive livelihoods and boost economies. We call on the G7 governments meeting later this month to agree on the use of data to safely plan and coordinate the return of the freedom to travel which is so important to people, livelihoods and businesses,” said Willie Walsh, IATA’s director general.

According to IATA evidence continues to show that vaccination protects travellers from serious illness and death, and carries a low risk of introducing the virus into destination countries. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) concluded that vaccinated travellers are no longer significant in the spread of the disease and do not pose a major risk to the German population while the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC) issued interim guidance on the benefits of full vaccination stating that “the likelihood of an infected vaccinated person transmitting the disease is currently assessed to be very low to low”.

Also, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (US CDC) stated that “with a 90% effective vaccine, pre-travel testing, post-travel testing, and 7-day selfquarantine provide minimal additional benefit” and the Canadian Testing and Screening Expert Advisory Panel recommends that vaccinated travellers do not need to be quarantined.

However, IATA noted that a challenge is the potential of barriers to travel for unvaccinated people which would create an unacceptable exclusion. Data from the UK NHS regarding international travellers arriving in the UK (with no reference to vaccination status) shows that the vast majority of travellers pose no risk for the introduction of Covid-19 cases after arrival.

“Many governments continue to require universal quarantine – either hotel-managed or self-managed. This impedes the freedom of movement, discourages international travel and destroys employment in the travel and tourism sector. Data from the UK tells us that we can and must do better. Almost 98% of those detained because of universal quarantine measures tested negative for the virus. We now have more than a year of global data that can help governments make more targeted decisions on international travel. This can keep the risk of importing Covid-19 cases low – Including variants of concern – while restarting international travel with minimal infringement on the ability to live normal work and social lives.

Importantly, lives that include travel,” said Walsh. IATA teamed up with Airbus and Boeing to demonstrate potential methodologies to manage the risks of Covid-19 to keep populations safe while restarting global connectivity. Aviation, including manufacturers, effectively manages and mitigates risk every day to keep air travel safe. Using these skills, Airbus and Boeing have developed data-driven risk-management models to understand the impact of various options.

Focusing on risks across the whole journey, Airbus considered more than 50 variables (such as number of confirmed cases and fatalities per country, Covid-19 testing strategies, traffic statistics, flight length, time spent in airport terminals, provision of on-board catering and air conditioning) in its model. Assumptions for the model are based on over a dozen data sources (including US CDC and the World Health Organisation). And results of the model were cross-referenced against data collections from actual results and observations from travel.