The Effects of Border Shutdowns on the Spread of COVID-19

• Main Authors: Nahae Kang, Beomsoo Kim
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Korean Society for Preventive Medicine 2020-09-01
• Series: Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• Subjects: coronavirus; pandemics; border shutdown; synthetic control method
• Online Access: http://www.jpmph.org/upload/pdf/jpmph-20-332.pdf

Objectives At the beginning of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, some countries imposed entry bans against Chinese visitors. We sought to identify the effects of border shutdowns on the spread of the COVID-19 outbreak. Methods We used the synthetic control method to measure the effects of entry bans against Chinese visitors on the cumulative number of confirmed cases using World Health Organization situation reports as the data source. The synthetic control method constructs a synthetic country that did not shut down its borders, but is similar in all other aspects. Results Six countries that shut down their borders were evaluated. For Australia, the effects of the policy began to appear 4 days after implementation, and the number of COVID-19 cases dropped by 94.4%. The border shutdown policy took around 13.2 days to show positive effects and lowered COVID-19 cases by 91.7% on average by the end of February. Conclusions The border shutdowns in early February significantly reduced the spread of the virus. Our findings are informative for future planning of public health policies.