WHO advises against countries that have effective health policies restricting travel.
The travel deals (as expected) start tumbling out. You can now go to Europe return for around $1300 inc taxes. A major carrier had dropped its business class from their usual $10,000 to $7000.00. A 2 night stopover in Singapore can be had for $1!!!
World Health Org Cautions on Being Overzealous on Tightening Travel Restrictions
In response to a question from a CNN contributor during Tuesday’s Covid-19 press conference, Dr. Michael J Ryan, executive director of WHO’s health emergencies program, spoke about the travel restrictions put in place around the world. Since the outbreak began, the WHO has advised against such onerous restrictions.
“…We’ve always maintained that [travel restrictions] should be a very limited part of any set of public health measures taken by countries. WHO doesn’t have the authority to — other than recommend public health measures. But what we do have the authority to do is to challenge countries when they implement restrictions that we believe exceed our advice, and we’ve been doing that systematically.
What we have noticed though is that countries that rely purely on travel measures as the only public health intervention have not done so well. Because when they have reported cases, they’ve subsequently been caught off guard. So any country that relies on travel measures or screening at airports as its only public health defence — that is a very weak defence. Where countries use travel measures and travel advice as part of a comprehensive public health strategy, where they implement measures that are time limited, that are evidence-based, and can be justified — then I think those measures can be better understood.
…WHO has no natural authority in this area in legal terms, we don’t have the right to punish member states for exceeding our travel advice. What we do have is scientific evidence. What we do have, if anything, is a moral authority to advise countries on how to best use that evidence. If countries decide to exceed that evidence, there’s not a whole lot we can do about that. We can only challenge them and continue to challenge them on that. But clearly travel measures by themselves do not represent an adequate response to the spread of any infectious disease.”
