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559Border
Closures: A Pandemic of Symbolic Acts in the Time of COVID-19
closures (see Figures F4.2 and F4.3). A simple fixed-effects regres-
sion confirms that enacting targeted border closures at any period
during the outbreak is not statistically associated with fewer cases
of COVID-19 (F(1,160) = 1.23, p = 0.268, within R2 = 0.0077) or fewer
deaths (F(1,160) = 1.49, p = 0.223, within R2 = 0.0054).7
Targeted Border Closures Are Illegal
In addition to their likely ineffectiveness, targeted border closures
are also illegal. According to Article 43 of the International Health
Regulations (see Box F4.1), countries are only permitted to enact
“additional health measures” limiting travel during pandemics if
such measures are 1) supported by science, 2) proportionate to the
risks involved, and 3) respectful of human rights.8 These three con-
ditions are intended to protect people and economies from needless
harm and to avoid disincentivizing governments from alerting the
World Health Organization (WHO) to new public health risks when
first identified.9
The targeted COVID-19 border closures do not fulfil these three
requirements.10 As described above, the science around targeted
travel restrictions points against their effectiveness; research on previ-
ous outbreaks of similar viruses suggests that these restrictions typi-
cally delay their spread by only a few days. Second, targeted border
closures are not proportionate to the risks involved, especially given
that there are better strategies for addressing the COVID-19 outbreak,
such as screening at airports, community surveillance, and public
communication. Third, targeted border closures may violate human
7. In the fixed-effects regression model, each country is treated as an individual
subject with repeated measures. A dummy variable was included to reflect
whether a country had implemented a targeted border closure on any given
day. Two statistical analyses were conducted, one with COVID-19 cases as the
dependent variable of interest and a second with COVID-19-attributed deaths
as the dependent variable. The F-statistic indicates model fit; neither model’s
results are statistically significant. The very low within R2 value indicates that
little variation in the dependent variables was explained by the enactment of
targeted border closures across countries. All data were from: Max Roser et al,
“Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19)” (last updated 26 May 2020), online: Our
World in Data <https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer> [Roser].
8. World Health Organization, “International Health Regulations (2005)” (2005),
online (pdf): World Health Organization <http://www.who.int/ihr/publications/
9789241580496/en/>.
9. Habibi, supra note 1.
10. Ibid.
VULNERABLE
The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Titel
- VULNERABLE
- Untertitel
- The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Autoren
- Vanessa MacDonnell
- Jane Philpott
- Sophie Thériault
- Sridhar Venkatapuram
- Verlag
- Ottawa Press
- Datum
- 2020
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 9780776636429
- Abmessungen
- 15.2 x 22.8 cm
- Seiten
- 648
- Kategorien
- Coronavirus
- International