Risk of COVID-19 variant importation – How useful are travel control measures?

• Published in: Infectious disease modelling Vol. 6; pp. 875 - 897
• Main Authors: Arino, Julien, Boëlle, Pierre-Yves, Milliken, Evan, Portet, Stéphanie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01-01-2021; KeAi Communications Co. Ltd; KeAi Publishing; KeAi Communications Co., Ltd
• Subjects: COVID-19; Emerging diseases; Human health and pathology; Importation risk; Infectious diseases; Life Sciences; Special issue on Modelling and Forecasting the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Transmission; Edited by Prof. Carlos Castillo-Chavez, Prof. Gerardo Chowell-Puente, Prof. Ping Yan, Prof. Jianhong Wu; Variants; COVID-19; Importation risk; Variants
• ISSN: 2468-0427; 2468-2152; 2468-0427
• DOI: 10.1016/j.idm.2021.06.006

We consider models for the importation of a new variant COVID-19 strain in a location already seeing propagation of a resident variant. By distinguishing contaminations generated by imported cases from those originating in the community, we are able to evaluate the contribution of importations to the dynamics of the disease in a community. We find that after an initial seeding, the role of importations becomes marginal compared to that of community-based propagation. We also evaluate the role of two travel control measures, quarantine and travel interruptions. We conclude that quarantine is an efficacious way of lowering importation rates, while travel interruptions have the potential to delay the consequences of importations but need to be applied within a very tight time window following the initial emergence of the variant.