The restart of international travel....
 

A very interesting article »»»

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/resta...a/?published=t

This discusses restriction as opposed to a total prohibition, and preventing first wave as opposed to subsequent waves. In addition it is not pathogen specific.

A number of countries including Singapore and China are seeing second waves due to cross border travel. Taking temperature has limited value as many people, especially under 40, have no temperature when shedding. Antibody testing is very helpful but only in the over 40s. So we really have no reliable test at the border

IMHO a country cannot relax lockdown /stay in place until the number of new cases is below that country's ability to track and trace. This will vary from country to country. The ability to reopen borders will depend upon the amount of destination and transit footfall into that country and its country of origin. So this is multifactorial. IMHO reopening borders should occur late in the process of easing lockdown, and potentially wait for mass vaccination, but no two countries are the same.

I did chuckle at this bit - if only...

Customs and Border Protection and the TSA will need to develop robust protocols that prevent crowding, such as by decreasing wait times

The desperation being seen by countries trying to return to normal is worrying. It all started with one individual and we've now reached over 2 million infected. What's to say it can't stay again. Between a rock and a hard place. But what I've realized is that the more extreme restrictions on movement of people has been the right call. Taking it easy has led to disaster.

Tracking and tracing will slow the spread but cannot prevent it because it is very difficult to track and trace asymptomatic cases. The very best shot we had at that, was right back at the start of all this when we knew who had left China, yet the world failed. The only thing they can do is hope to keep the infection rate to an acceptable level via a whole host of techniques of which, social distancing will remain the most important.. Ideally they need to avoid the requirement for another full lockdown once the current ones have been lifted, but I suspect that will require more stringent social distancing than they will initially attempt (for the economy’s sake), and it will therefore get away from them at least once more.

I cannot see people being allowed to rush back to nonessential flying until a vaccine comes along. Such complacency wiould almost certainly result in further lockdowns.

Arriving in MIA is like being required to parade for close order drill where everyone except the passengers have weapons.

Definitely the best place to test the "herd immunity" strategy for virus control. Coming to an airport near you...:E

IG

Keeping these restrictions for longer than a couple of months will lead to even greater disaster. And not only for the aviation industry.

Correct. They'll be anarchy at some point, people like their liberty. It appears there will have to be "acceptable" losses, the alternative is far scarier.

Not sure that anarchy is the immediate problem. More like a total economic meltdown which will then eventually give rise to anarchy.

CBP have some good form in decreasing wait times at their facilities on the occasions they are getting measured - they make pax wait inside the incoming aircraft at the gate, sometimes for hours.

LAX especially, looking at you ...

I think we should distinguish between restrictions within a country and restrictions between countries

Restrictions within a country are, in democracies, up to the government and its charter with the people. There is indeed a balance between death and the economy

However restrictions between countries in the main only effect aviation and tourism. Goods and livestock can be imported and exported but the borders closed to humans. The economic effect would be limited and IMHO far less than the damage from a second, third or fourth wave. A vaccine is now possible at the end of 2020 and I just dont see the justification with killing the same number of citizens again.

Take-away
 

I think the main takeaway is that international travel restrictions have limited benefits once community transmission is wide-ranging (the major increase in risk is by increasing transmission between pax and staff during travel, which can be mitigated by measures the author touched on, aside from understanding that the same risks are associated with domestic travel). Complete travel shutdowns will not prevent second, third or other waves...

With community transmission, the benefits of complete international travel bans are limited, as the author says. Plus transmission during travel can be reduced. The benefits that are hard to quantify are from family members/students/key business leaders being able to relocate as needed (even if adhering to social distancing in their destinations, they may still need to enter/leave a country). It is sad to to see restrictions put in place that are not aligned with best-available evidence but at a potentially large human costs.

just to be clear, even if they found a vaccine worked Tommorow, you have to have extensive human trials. Do we want another thalidomide scandal? There is zero chance of a vaccine this year, and only a remote chance of one in 2021.

Yes and no.
My own country of NZ was planning on several million international tourists this year, and is now expecting virtually none. A whole swathe of tourist-dependant industry - hotels, camping grounds, camper van hire, bars, restaurants, "Hobbiton" tours, jet boat rides, bungy jump 'experiences', etc. etc. - will go bust as there does not appear to be any realistic chance of international tourism resuming until there's a vaccine.
On the other hand, our goods export industries are continuing to flourish, partly because the NZ dollar has depreciated about 10% against the US dollar.

I'm sure there are many other economies where long-haul international tourism has previously been the backbone of their prosperity.
For example, Bali without hordes of Australian and NZ tourists will be a much poorer place. Nicer maybe, but poorer

And that is assuming the boffins are able to actually develop a vaccine. AIUI, there has never been a vaccine developed to treat a corona virus, so if they develop one, it will be a world first.

You understand wrong I’m afraid. Canine coronavirus vaccines are available now and have been for quite some time. There isn’t much barrier, aside from time, to be able to develop one for human infection.

Although I’m not saying/predicting that we’ll develop the solution for humans any time soon. As far as current science goes, it’s a matter of when, not if.

Vaccines need to be grown; that will unfortunately take time. After that, they’ll need to conduct extensive clinical trials before one shows up at your local health centre.

As annoying/damaging as it is, it’s a matter of patience.

What giggity said. There are Covid 19 vaccines already undergoing human trials (one such trial is taking place in Seattle). Normally it would be another ~18 months before such a vaccine would be approved for general use, but there is enough urgency associated with Covid 19 to cut that - perhaps in half - but that still puts into next year.
More encouraging is the development of near instant testing for the virus - a couple minutes from sample to final results. Such testing - if widely available and reasonably cheap - could be a game changer.

I am a little bit more optimistic when I say that approval for the vaccine could be late this year; getting sufficient people vaccinated will take a year too, it takes time to get enough vaccine produced.
But that would not test for the next virus. I think society should consider the cost of airlifting viruses (in a contagious host) from one continent to another.

“just to be clear, even if they found a vaccine worked Tommorow, you have to have extensive human trials. Do we want another thalidomide scandal? There is zero chance of a vaccine this year, and only a remote chance of one in 2021.”

If that is true we will all have been exposed long before we get a vaccine, so the vaccine will be no use, this is a very infectious pandemic, all we can do is treat symptoms. In the U.K. it is already causing high mortality in care homes for the elderly, most younger patients do have a good resistance or some immunity. At some point the economy has to return to work, how soon international travel is possible is very uncertain because each nation will have its own restrictions.