Border closure an option: study

CLOSING the border may make sense for New Zealand in some extreme pandemic situations, according to a newly published study of the costs and benefits of taking this step.

‘‘In a severe pandemic, timely/effective border closure could save tens of thousands of New Zealand lives far outweighing the disruptions to the economy and the temporary end to tourism from international travellers,’’ one of the authors, Nick Wilson, of the University of Otago, Wellington, said.

‘‘This finding is consistent with work that we published last year — except our new study used a more sophisticated model developed by the New Zealand Treasury for performing costbenefit analyses,’’ Prof Wilson said.

The research has just been published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health.

Another of the authors, Matt Boyd, said with increasing risks of new pandemics due to the growing density of human populations and various socioeconomic, environmental and ecological factors, there was a need to look at different scenarios for better pandemic planning.

‘‘Also, with advances in gene technology there is growing concern around the ease that new bioweapons could emerge deliberately or accidentally and they could cause a novel and very severe pandemic,’’ Dr Boyd said.

‘‘There is even the scenario in future decades that a rogue form of artificial intelligence could develop such a biowea pon to allow it to escape from human control,’’ he said.

The researchers noted the World Health Organisation and most experts did not recommend border closure for disease control.

That was because it was hard for most countries to fully close their borders.

The situation was different for island nations.

This was particularly true for New Zealand, according to another of the authors, Michael Baker.

‘‘If the appropriate planning is done it would be possible to rapidly close New Zealand’s international airports and manage ongoing trade in key supplies with the crew of cargo planes not leaving their aircraft or overnighting in controlled facilities.

‘‘Indeed, the options for New Zealand will probably keep improving in this regard if current international work on drone cargo ships with no crews becomes a reality,’’ Prof Baker said.

For the border closure to be effective, it would need to happen before the pandemic agent had entered the country.

Collectively, the authors argued New Zealand needed to update its generic pandemic plans to include a rapid border closure option.

They also suggested there needed to be the legal capacity for the Prime Minister and Cabinet to order the borders closed in under one day of deliberations.

‘‘It will be a very difficult decision, but in the case of some severe pandemics it could save tens of thousands of lives and huge health costs,’’ Prof Wilson said.

❛ There is even the scenario in future decades that a rogue form of artificial intelligence could develop such a bioweapon to allow it to escape from human control

Study coauthor Matt Boyd