Readers of this blog will recognize several familiar themes. One of them is that the world is not straightforward, and interesting answers are seldom simple. I have written previously about how core to our thinking about health should be a capacity to engage with ambiguity and issues which do not always neatly resolve. This has never been truer than when it comes to the issue of national borders in the context of pandemics. Borders and migration have long been some of the most fraught terrain in our current political debate. The issues elicit strong feelings on all sides—whether one favors maximally exclusive national boundaries or something akin to open borders. The conversation about borders becomes even more complicated in the context of infectious disease outbreaks.
At the core of the issue are two contradictory, yet equally true, realities.
First, pandemics expose the fundamental interconnectedness of health. It is the case that outbreaks will spread without heed to the artificial lines on maps we call “borders.” With that in mind, borders can play a role in containing outbreaks and closing national borders as early and tightly as possible during an outbreak can, combined with aggressive in-country testing and tracing, help to protect populations from emergent world-wide contagion. The figure below reflects the world’s dawning appreciation of this, showing the state of border restrictions early in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read the full post on The Healthiest Goldfish.