COVID-19: UK “Super Spreader” Exposes Flaws in Contentious China Travel Bans

A British businessman was released from hospital on February 11 after contracting the coronavirus—now named COVID-19—which has claimed over 1,700 lives worldwide. Steve Walsh, from Brighton, caught the virus during a business trip to Singapore and went on to unwittingly infect nine others while holidaying in France.

Now dubbed a “super spreader” by the British media, Mr Walsh’s life has been turned upside, cast as the villain in an epidemic that continues to sweep across the world. It is of course abhorrent to criticize Mr Walsh as some newspapers have given he did not know he was infected, having showed no symptoms in Singapore or France before heading back to the UK.

His treatment reflects a similar witch-hunt which many Chinese communities across the world are currently experiencing, having been targeted due to misconceptions about where the virus stems from, often stoked by incendiary comments from some politicians.

It also highlights the problems of travel ban’s, and the flawed sense of security that they offer. The reasoning for such bans, which countries such as Australia and the United States have placed on China, is that by keeping people out from the source, the virus is then less likely to spread.

But Mr Walsh didn’t visit Hubei Province, the centre of the epidemic, or even China. Rather he caught the virus in a country which both Australia and the US have deemed safe to travel to.

It is the ease in which people can “slip through the net”, as in the case of Mr Walsh, which is why the World Health Organisation has been sceptical to endorse such measures. WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated on February 3 that they would “unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade,” including the movement of vital medical supplies such as masks, test kits and antibacterial gels and in the weeks since, his organization has refused to change its opinion.

What’s more, their position is being strongly backed by leading medical and scientific experts, who have increasingly spoken out against the effect of such measures and warning that they could in fact do more harm than good.

Travel bans “unlikely to keep virus out”

Jennifer Nuzzo, PhD, a senior scholar at the Centre for Health Security at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, is one of those critical of the US measures, claiming travel bans on China are ineffective in stopping the coronavirus from spreading, and that they should “completely rethink” their strategy.

“All of the evidence we have indicates that travel restrictions and quarantines directed at individual countries are unlikely to keep the virus out of our borders,” Nuzzo said at a subcommittee hearing of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on February 5.

“Simply put, the virus is spreading too quickly and too silently and our surveillance is too limited for us to truly know which countries have active transmission and which don’t,” she said.

There is also growing concern that travel bans might cause other, unintended consequences, such as hindering the spread of accurate information. Saskia Popescu, an epidemiologist in Arizona and global health security researcher at George Mason University, is worried those looking to leave from areas where the virus has hit will hide their true condition if it affects their ability to travel.

“On a personal level, it discourages people from coming forward, from being transparent. You’re more likely to have people try and go about travel in less direct ways, which would then totally negate the purpose of that,” she said. “You’re forcing people into situations that could more actively promote disease transmission.”

Travel bans cause distrust

Countries may also feel similar fear in sharing information, especially if they are worried about external repercussions. China has been widely praised for the transparency of its response to COVID-19 having identified the virus quickly and then shared its viral sequence with the world. But the implementation of travel bans has caused tensions between China and some of those countries, especially in the US, where crass statements from American politicians such as Senator Tom Cotton have increased. Experts worry this distrust could cause the sharing arrangements currently in place, and the valuable information from which has flown from them, to stop if tensions further escalate.

There is also a fear that those repercussions could include trade. While China’s economy is large enough to absorb the impact of recent travel bans, smaller countries may not. If Thailand or Vietnam, for example, were to see a rise in cases, a similar travel ban could be imposed on them, curtailing their tourist industries which are a vital source of income for their respective economies. Ngaire Woods, Dean of the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford believes this could stop smaller nations from telling the true extent of their problems.

“[Travel restrictions] makes it likelier that other countries – such as China’s smaller neighbours – will not notify the world when the virus spreads to them, owing to fear of being closed off and the massive economic costs this would imply,” she wrote in an article for Project Syndicate.

Then there is the problem of those travelling whilst carrying the virus, like Mr Walsh, who are asymptomatic and only reveal their infection much later, possibly travelling through various countries before being detected. For this reason, Dr Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent said “it is very hard to imagine that travel bans coming out of China would necessarily be that effective because of the incubation period”.

Monitor but don’t ban

Had a travel ban been in place on France and Singapore, Mr Walsh would probably would not have contracted the virus or gone on to infect 9 others. But this should not be used as an argument for further blanket travel bans. Cutting ourselves off, putting up barriers and reeling in the drawbridge is counterintuitive when experts are asking for more screenings at borders, greater transparency, clearer lines of communication and better collective action between all countries.

The WHO has asked those responsible to “make their decisions based on evidence”. The evidence so far is overwhelmingly suggesting that travel bans on China, and any other nation that may experience a high number of coronavirus cases, is disproportionate and should be scrapped.