Scientists say that these are helpful in the absence of time-consuming observational studies. The pandemic has shown public-health researchers that, in some situations, travel restrictions help to keep epidemics under control, says Lee. Another modelling study 3 , published in The Lancet on 7 December, estimated the effect of sustained travel restrictions on reducing viral spread.
Preventing travel from high-prevalence countries would be sufficient to reduce exposure in many regions, says Jit. Hoffman says that observational studies are now needed to tease out the effectiveness of countries completely shutting their borders.
At the time, the agency advised against essential travel to regions across China, where the outbreak began, and places with sizeable outbreaks, such as Toronto, Canada. Some researchers argued that the decision placed an unfair economic burden on those regions and disincentivized member states from reporting infectious-disease outbreaks.
The WHO said in an e-mail that it is reviewing the evidence on travel mitigation measures and will publish scientific reports on this, which will also help countries assess the risk of lifting travel restrictions. Chinazzi, M. Science , — PubMed Article Google Scholar. Are borders—whether around Europe, the United States, or elsewhere—actually as vulnerable and under threat as some politicians insist?
Threat perceptions related to terrorism, immigrants, and illicit drugs have been used by some presidential candidates to justify costly proposals for thousands of miles of walls along our Southern and Northern borders.
Most recently, those heightened fears have led some leaders to argue against the admission to the United States of refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria. This heated political rhetoric obscures the complexity of the border reality confronted by the United States and its neighbors, which is dominated by the growth of beneficial cross-border trade and travel. The growing intensity of cross-border flows can be traced first and foremost to the spread of peace and the opening of borders across the Americas.
Unlike Europe in the face of the Syrian crisis, and unlike Ukraine under threat from Russian-backed militias, the United States does not have to worry about the effects of military conflicts involving its neighbors.
Across the hemisphere, countries solve their disputes in international courts rather than on the battlefield. Peaceful borders in the Americas are not an accident of history, but rather the product of two remarkable trends over the past three decades: sweeping democratization and the spread of economic integration agreements. This has led countries to manage borders through peaceful negotiations rather than militarization. And now the Trans-Pacific Partnership offers the possibility of a next generation trade agreement that would include five major economies in the hemisphere.
Economic integration and democratization have produced many public goods in the Americas, such as increased freedom and shared prosperity. According to United Nations statistics, merchandise trade in Latin America more than tripled between and , and trade flows have nearly doubled for North America over the same period. In Kenya for example when the border with Uganda was closed, Kenyans were forced to acquire Ugandan passports to visit relatives.
This of course defeated the whole purpose of closing the border and encouraged corruption. Four, closed border systems are both expensive and impractical to police given the limited human and material resources available to both national and local authorities. Given their sheer length and extent most borders in Africa are extremely porous. Many governments simply do not have resources to man such borders.
Attempts to do this like in a apartheid South Africa simply proved futile while also endangering the lives of the would be migrants. Free border points served with government officers and right information reduces the need to carry out unnecessary and expensive surveillance.
Internal dynamics such as demand for labour may also undermine central governments' attempts to close borders. Skip to main content. Human Mobility International Migration: Open versus closed borders.
Not all borders are the same Practical realities therefore invite us to revisit the border discourse. No evidence that borders are more insecure than other towns Secondly, besides situations of conflicts, there is no evidence that these border towns pose more threats to national security concerns and practices and than other towns- a position normally advanced by central governments to justify having heavy security personnel in border areas.
Transnational community interested in Safe Borders Three, local people who benefit from open borders have interest in keeping borders safe and secure so that they can conduct their business safely, continue visiting their kith and kin without hindrance from security officers and migration officers.
State governments are generally responsible for health and education, and therefore have a different set of factors to consider: if cases spiked again, their hospitals would bear the brunt of the extra caseload, and they have a duty to ensure that teachers have a safe workplace.
On top of that, states need to provide their students with the best learning outcomes possible, and so must balance that education with potential impacts on the community. All of these considerations are incredibly important and had to be balanced carefully. Expecting consensus on this issue is unrealistic and undesirable. The same applies to reopening state borders. Each state faces different factors in combating the pandemic, and therefore the response has to be different.
Unfortunately, on these issues — like so many others — we see useful debate descend into squabbling, political point-scoring and sensationalist rhetoric.
So how do we ensure that our federal system delivers more constructive debate and less pointless bickering?
Providing an adequate forum for debate to occur is a good start. The Senate was originally intended as such a place, where states could make their voice heard on national issues, but that function has long since been eroded by party politics.
The Council of Australian Governments COAG provides another space for leaders to debate, but its limited and infrequent meeting schedule makes it a difficult vehicle for driving constructive discussions.
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