Grounded: Travel bans and nCoV outbreak

-- The 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has infected more than 20,000 people worldwide, with most cases from China. As of Tuesday, its death toll climbed to 427 with two deaths from outside the country of origin, one each from Hong Kong and the Philippines.

The World Health Organization (WHO), the authority that supervises global health concerns, has recommended against any travel or trade restrictions. However, since the United States imposed a ban on flights from China, other countries have followed suit.With governments around the world racing against time to contain the virus through measures, including the closure of their borders, questions were raised as to the stand of the WHO on the matter.

Tarik Jašarević, WHO spokesperson, said in a press interview in late January that “travel restrictions may intuitively seem like the right thing to do, (but) this is not something that WHO usually recommends.”

“This is because of the social disruption they cause and the intensive use of resources required,”

Jašarević added.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, “travel restrictions can cause more harm than good by hindering info-sharing, medical supply chains, and harming economies.”

Experts say travel and trade restrictions make it more difficult to track cases and their contacts, and disrupt the medical supply chain, potentially fueling shortages of drugs and medical supplies in areas hit hardest by the outbreak.

These also send a punitive message, which could contribute to discrimination and stereotyping against Chinese nationals. What went before? Amid the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003, Canada imposed a quarantine on some 25,000 residents in the greater Toronto area where millions were screened at the airports.

“The pilot thermal scanner project screened about 2.4 million passengers. Only 832 required further assessment, and again none were found to have SARS. In other countries, the yields for airport screening measures were similarly low,” read an excerpt from the report titled Learning from SARS: Renewal of Public Health in Canada.

A 2006 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences used a mathematical simulation to predict how travel restrictions might affect the spread of avian flu in the United States if the virus evolved to pass easily between humans.