Is it safe to lift COVID-19 travel bans? The Newfoundland story
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Is it safe to lift COVID-19 travel bans? The Newfoundland story Kevin Linka1 · Proton Rahman2 · Alain Goriely3 · Ellen Kuhl1 Received: 16 July 2020 / Accepted: 3 August 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract A key strategy to prevent a local outbreak during the COVID-19 pandemic is to restrict incoming travel. Once a region has successfully contained the disease, it becomes critical to decide when and how to reopen the borders. Here we explore the impact of border reopening for the example of Newfoundland and Labrador, a Canadian province that has enjoyed no new cases since late April, 2020. We combine a network epidemiology model with machine learning to infer parameters and predict the COVID-19 dynamics upon partial and total airport reopening, with perfect and imperfect quarantine conditions. Our study suggests that upon full reopening, every other day, a new COVID-19 case would enter the province. Under the current conditions, banning air travel from outside Canada is more efficient in managing the pandemic than fully reopening and quarantining 95% of the incoming population. Our study provides quantitative insights of the efficacy of travel restrictions and can inform political decision making in the controversy of reopening. Keywords COVID-19 · Epidemiology · SEIR model · Reproduction number · Machine learning
“There is one and only one way to absolutely prevent it and that is by establishing absolute isolation. It is necessary to shut off those who are capable of giving off the virus from those who are capable of being infected, or vice versa.” The Lessons Of The Pandemic, Science 1919.
1 Motivation On July 3, 2020, the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador enjoyed the rather exceptional and enviable position of having the coronavirus pandemic under control with
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Ellen Kuhl [email protected] Kevin Linka [email protected] Proton Rahman [email protected] Alain Goriely [email protected]
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
2
Department of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Canada
3
Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
the total number of 261 cases, with 258 recovered, 3 deaths, no active cases for 16 consecutive days, and no new cases for 36 days [2]. On the same day, after a 2-month long local travel ban, the Atlantic Bubble opened to allow air travel between the four Atlantic Provinces, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, with no quarantine requirements for travelers [36]. Under the increasing pressure to fully reopen, health officials and political decision makers now seek to understand the risk of gradual and full reopening under perfect quarantine conditions and quarantine violation [24]. The province of Newfoundland and Labrador is the second smallest Canadian province with a population of 519,716. It has two major geographical divisions, the island of Newfoundland that accounts for 92% of the
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