Omicron Brings Another Round of Pointless Travel Restrictions

With the new omicron variant spreading across the world, travel restrictions seem to be the response of choice because they're politically popular.

The new variant was well-established in the countries announcing travel restrictions, including the U.S. "The new case demonstrates that there is at least some local transmission of the Omicron variant and that it had arrived in the U.S. before the Biden administration imposed travel restrictions on Botswana and South Africa - where early cases of the variant were detected - and six neighboring countries," Stat.

"Only extensive travel restrictions - i.e. over 90% - had any meaningful effect on reducing the magnitude of epidemics. In isolation, travel restrictions might delay the spread and peak of pandemics by a few weeks or months but we found no evidence that they would contain influenza within a defined geographical area."

Favored imposing travel restrictions on countries where omicron has been found.

"60 percent of adults said they think travel restrictions on countries with confirmed cases of new variants will help stop the spread of the virus in the United States," the pollsters added.

Stopping the spread of the virus in the U.S. with restrictions on travel from elsewhere would be quite a feat given that omicron is already here.

"The current round of restrictions has already reduced travel and dampened consumer confidence," Patricia Cohen noted.

https://reason.com/2021/12/03/omicron-brings-another-round-of-pointless-travel-restrictions/