Can a Travel Ban Stop a Flu Pandemic?

Jesse Walker | April 29, 2009

It isn't just trade barriers that won't stem the spread of flu. A story in New Scientist suggests that general travel bans aren't very effective either:

In a 2007 paper, [computer scientist Alessandro] Vespignani's team modelled the spread of influenza pandemics of varying severities in 3100 urban centres in 220 countries. They also looked at the effectiveness of countermeasures including vaccination, administration of antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu, and travel restrictions.

A Draconian 10-fold reduction in airline travel would delay a pandemic by only a few weeks and have no effect on its overall health impact, Vespignani's team concluded. Other measures -- particularly widespread administration of antiviral drugs -- proved far more effective at limiting the spread of hypothetical pandemics.

A 2006 study led by Ben Cooper at the Health Protection Agency in London, UK, suggests that travel limitations would have to be implemented extremely early in a pandemic, when just a handful of people in a city are infected, to dramatically slow the spread. And even with a dramatic 99.9 per cent drop in airline traffic, most cities will eventually succumb to an influenza pandemic, Cooper's models indicate.

According to the researchers, such restrictions aren't just ineffective. They're harmful:

Modellers have also attempted to measure the economic cost of widespread travel bans in response to pandemic flu. In 2007, a team led by Joshua Epstein of the Brookings Institution in New York estimated that a 95 per cent reduction in air travel in the US could cost about $100 billion per year, or a little less than 1 per cent of the US gross national product.

Comments

Guess My Bra Size|4.29.09 @ 4:18PM|#

"In a 2007 paper, [computer scientist Alessandro] Vespignani's team modelled the spread of influenza pandemics of varying severities in 3100 urban centres in 220 countries."

You mean they did the same thing with computer modeling that the AGW scientists did?

|4.29.09 @ 4:22PM|#

Shhhhhh!!!! Don't tell LoneWhacko! He still wants to believe the "experts" in fine countries like Russia and Madagascar!

Xeones|4.29.09 @ 4:23PM|#

...estimated that a 95 per cent reduction in air travel in the US could cost about $100 billion per year, or a little less than 1 per cent of the US gross national product.

Well, the gubmint is already destroying the economy in order to save it. What's another lost percent of GNP here or there?

|4.29.09 @ 4:30PM|#

Run (Play) this advanced simulation and tell me closing borders doesn't work. Just try to kill Madagasgar.

http://www.addictinggames.com/pandemic2.html

Guess My Bra Size|4.29.09 @ 4:35PM|#

"http://www.addictinggames.com/pandemic2.html"

Will have to check it out.

wayne|4.29.09 @ 5:03PM|#

I don't know if these results are correct, or not.

The problem with "models" are the assumptions made when constructing the model. Hard to make the right choices up front when so many things are not at all clear.

db|4.29.09 @ 5:10PM|#

a 95 per cent reduction in air travel in the US could cost about $100 billion per year, or a little less than 1 per cent of the US gross national product.

That's OK. The Obama administration has clearly shown they aren't concerned about the cost of any of their policies.

db|4.29.09 @ 5:12PM|#

looks like X had me beat by almost and hour.

|4.29.09 @ 5:17PM|#

A Draconian 10-fold reduction in airline travel would delay a pandemic by only a few weeks and have no effect on its overall health impact, Vespignani's team concluded.

Disclaimer: I don't think this virus warrant a draconian travel ban because of it's low mortality. However, let's assume it has a very high mortality rate. Currently, they say it will be a few months for a vaccine to be ready. Won't the few weeks of time afforded by a travel ban be a help because it will give some extra time for vaccines to be developed, manufactured and distributed? Saying a travel ban only slowed the spread of the virus for a few weeks seems to diminish the point of a travel ban, which is to slow the spread of a virus.

|4.29.09 @ 5:38PM|#

How much did people travel in 1918?

Influenza is a motherfucker. This could be a disaster for third world nations. Western Europe, Japan, the U.S. et al, not so much.

stoneymonster|4.29.09 @ 5:49PM|#

J sub D

How much did people travel in 1918?

Given a few million soldiers were cavorting back and forth to europe packed to the last cubic inch in ships, I'd say travel played a pretty big role.

jtuf|4.29.09 @ 9:18PM|#

So the most effective defense against the swine flu is an over the counter cold medicine, like the over the counter cold medicines legislators put behind the counter because of the meth scare.

DJF|4.30.09 @ 1:04PM|#

So if I get Swine Flu I should not stay at home but should instead go out and stimulate the economy by going to movies, concerts and vacations to distant locations using the airlines

|5.2.09 @ 1:39AM|#

"Can a Travel Ban Stop a Flu Pandemic?"

Only one involving non-white people who talk funny...

(And by the way, don't you dare call me a racist...)

|5.10.09 @ 6:20PM|#

I think since the diesase is already spreading, stopping us from traveling isn't going to really do anything. Swine flue isn't that big of a deal unless your in Mexico. The dieases is going to spread wether we travel or not, and even if we stay home, our family members can get it and then still go to work and spread it. It doesn't make a damn difference.