Coronavirus and Travel Bans

Coronavirus and Travel Bans

The Coronavirus, up close and personal

As the disease we know as Covid-19, or the Coronavirus, has started to take root and spread throughout most countries in the world, governments are shutting down and locking doors, trying to keep the virus contained. Many governments have instituted travel bans, which prohibit travel to and from any countries of their choosing, in order to slow the virus down. President Donald Trump of the United States has not hesitated with this strategy, banning travel to and from 24 European countries starting last Friday (13th), and adding the UK and Ireland starting Monday (16th). 

Pres. Trump has closed doors to 26 European countries

With the virus infecting at least 85% of countries in each continent, bar Africa, many nations have followed suit, and are shutting borders. But will this work?

More than 130,000 cases have been confirmed worldwide, and the death toll has surpassed 6,500. Almost every country has at least one confirmed case, with some reaching as much as 80,000, such as China. Many countries, like America, have closed only international flights and are still allowing domestic ones. In my opinion, this will only promote the spread of the virus as asymptomatic carriers travel across the country, bringing the virus to new places. As shown by early research, there is an incubation time of up to 14 days, meaning that people infected won’t show symptoms for two weeks, and could spread it unknowingly. This, paired with the domestic travel, gives the virus an opportunity to take over city by city, until it covers the whole country. So, there are bills being put in place to limit social interaction and even domestic travel, hopefully containing the virus.

But for some countries, none of this is an option as travel and tourism are the biggest factors in their economy. Islands like the British Virgin Islands and Aruba have nothing more than hotels and resorts to give them a financial boost, and with countries banning travel and limiting flights, the economy in places like these could crash.

 

Map of countries infected by Coronavirus

Let’s take, for example, Macau. Macau is a Chinese Special Administrative Region, or for anyone that won’t look it up, it's under the control of the Chinese government, like Hong Kong.  The most interesting thing about Macau, however, is its endless amounts of casino resorts and hotels. It has even earned the nickname, “the Vegas of Asia” because of this, and in turn, relies heavily on tourism for income. With most travel bans limiting access to China and all associated regions, the influx of travelers coming into Macau has slowed exponentially, damaging their influx of money proportionally. In fact, 28.05% of all of Macau’s GDP, or Gross Domestic Product, comes from these tourist spots like casinos, and with the downgrade in visitors, their financial state has taken a huge blow.

Macau casinos have fallen in revenue since the Coronavirus outbreak

Even Iceland, a country in first-world Europe, takes in 8.63% of its GDP from tourism. Now that doesn’t seem like much, but that ends up being over two billion dollars a year, a tremendous loss for the nation. Iceland saw 2.31 million foreigners cross their border for travel in 2018. The US, UK, and Germany made up 1.13 million of that, and all are countries that now prohibit travel. With all of this, Iceland's economy might soon fail.

But as the cases in China begin to fall, and the western world learns to cope with the virus, things will change, for the better or for the worse. We’ll just have to wait and see how effective the travel bans will be.