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With global spread, national border closures seem like a pretty facile solution to hypothetical more infectious variants that haven’t emerged yet or been imported. Int’l travel isn’t a selection pressure & claims about new variants are being accepted uncritically without proof. https://twitter.com/devisridhar/status/1340297129735172097
Sure maybe this variant is potentially more infectious or virulent, but what if it is? Viruses can evolve these traits no matter what and if a variant confers major advantage it can evolve independently.
And even if the UK completely obliterated COVID—which border closures won’t do—a variant could emerge elsewhere because globally there is tons of transmission and we have no idea how many species jumps may have occurred.
The way to stop the spread is through NPIs that can include travel restrictions, but to stop “more virus circulating” you have to squash it workdwide. We are beyond the point where strict international travel restrictions can help eliminate virus nationally.
If we look at countries that effectively controlled COVID, border restrictions are part of a larger package of NPIs and are usually not absolute. And they aren’t tailored to viral variants that may or may not have a functional advantage.
Imported cases are not causing most UK COVID cases. Transmission is occurring domestically and there are plenty of opportunities for species jumps and mutation with uncontrolled local spread. Focusing on international travel won’t do much about that.
