Read on Twitter
1/ Let's look at some actual numbers here, shall we? Let us ask the question - how much COVID would have been stopped has we adopted travel rules adopted by places like Australia, NZ, Taiwan, and South Korea prior to 18 March?
2/ Here are the dates on travel restrictions adopted by each country in Feb/March. TW went early on restrictions to China, as did AU. AU also brought in restrictions on three other countries at various points. Universal entry restrictions were simultaneous (except in SK) in March
3/ (the nature of those entry restrictions do vary a bit and that will matter a bit in our story, but I'll come back to that later).
4/ So what we see here is that in the absolute strictest country in the world, the one most "following the science", had entry restrictions on China 47 days before Canada, Iran 18 days, Korea 13 days and Italy 7 days. That's it, that's all.
5/ So let's take a look at what percentage of in-bound tourists into Canada this would have stopped. Here's a look at total tourist inflow into Canada. This *excludes* same-day traffic into/out of Canada (we'll come back to this in a bit, too.)
6/ Our travel restrictions are not as strong as AU's, for instance, but Apr-Nov tourist travel to Canada (incl returning Canicks) 2020 was down 96.5% on previous year, and over 75% of those inbound were Canadians & couldn't be stopped from entering anyway (it's a Charter Thing)
7/ In the 3 months leading up to Feb 20, nationals from PRC made up 3.2% of all inbound travellers, SK 1.3% & IT 0.6% (IR #s so small Statscan does not count). Together that makes 5.2% of all non-resident traffic. Or 1.66% of all inbound traffic (excl same-day trips to US).
8/ So, even had we been as vigilant as Australia, 98% + of all inbound traffic would have got through anyway. (Actually it's lees than that b/c inbound traffic from Chinese nationals fell by 55% in February even before we put on restrictions). Call it more like 99%, then.
9/ Now let's *include* those same-day trips to and from the US. AFAIK, no one - not even @nspector - has actually suggested forbidding essential workers from crossing the border or closing it to goods transport (though in any event same-day traffic is down 90% Y-on-Y)
10/ Same-Day trips constitute roughly one-third of all Canadian border crossings (about 70% of these are Cdns going back and forth - most of the rest are Americans). So if you throw them in, an Australia-style action prior to March 18 wouldn't even have made a 1% dent in the #s.
11/ Now if border controls prior to pandemic would not have made a difference, what would have? One option would have been a stronger ban (we banned in-bound non-essential travel by non-citizens, Australians banned *all* entry by non-citizens).
12/ We have been averaging about 55,000 inbound "essential" non-citizen travellers every month since April. That's not nothing. But again, same-day travel across the border is avg 225,000/mo since April. You have to kill the latter to have major effect.
13/ The other major difference, I think, is managed isolation at the border. Canada has undoubtedly been weaker than other countries at this. AU and NZ began a mandatory isolation for all incoming passengers (foreign + domestic) in late March/early April.
14/ in addition to those 55,000 inbound foreign passengers/month, there are another avg 110,000 Canadians per month returning from trips abroad (up to Nov, my guess is Dec-Jan could be twice that). And our quarantine system is basically "scout's honour"
15/ In short:
1) Adopting "AU-style" measures before Mar 18 would have reduced foreign entry by 1% or less.
2) Controls introduced on Mar 18 reduced incoming tourists by 96% + same-day US traffic by 90%
3) Greater improvements would have required near 100% shut down of US border
1) Adopting "AU-style" measures before Mar 18 would have reduced foreign entry by 1% or less.
2) Controls introduced on Mar 18 reduced incoming tourists by 96% + same-day US traffic by 90%
3) Greater improvements would have required near 100% shut down of US border
16/ There are good reasons to get angry about our crappy quarantine regime and lack of managed isolation. But the "why didn't we shut the borders earlier" crowd are not standing on firm ground when claiming it would have materially altered the course of the pandemic here.
17/ When pushed, of course, @nspector & co will compare AU case/death rate to Canada's and say "look, see, early bans worked" (b/c correlation = causation). But don't forget: USA put in an identical ban on travellers from PRC on 1 Feb, same as Oz. So maybe not causal after all.
18/ OK for some reason the first tweet did not link to the tweet I responding to, so my OP might look a bit deranged. Apologies. But this is it: https://twitter.com/nspector4/status/1353013042909335554?s=20
