Travel, High Potential to Spread COVID-19

Mobility is essential to the modern, globalized world. Industries such as tourism benefit from it and it is a cornerstone for many in the corporate sphere, as well. There are many foreign companies that rely on business travel to make operations a reality. While sharing knowledge by moving people around is usually an asset, in the case of a pandemic it might become a liability.

In fact, if travel was not as widespread as it is nowadays, the virus would have spread at a much slower pace from its origin in Wuhan. In 2020, the world is an interconnected place. The BBC noted that the virus spread first within China and surrounding countries. Soon after, it hit the US and moved to Europe, where there are open borders, which meant it was nearly impossible to contain the spreading. Current figures show that Italy, for instance, has long surpassed China in number of infections.

Just how much travel worsens the spread is hard to identify and would differ from a case to case basis. Mexico’s own case, however, provides an interesting insight. Widely reported by El Universal, numbers show that Mexico was far behind in the infection tables, while European countries and the US showed a steep incline. When the virus did reach Mexico, the first infected Mexican citizens had visited Italy. Further cases were imported as well, as Italy was not the only location that people had visited when contracting the virus. This week, the Ministry of Health reported that cases were spreading from within Mexico instead of being brought from abroad. Current figures count 585 people infected. Of these cases, 68 percent had been directly imported and 26 percent were associated with the former cases. Six percent of the infected have no idea how they contracted the virus, not having travelled or been in direct contact with people who had. This marks a shift in Mexico’s COVID-19 infections. While it cannot be fully confirmed that all of these people had contracted the virus on the streets, it can be assumed the virus is now spreading amongst Mexico’s regular residents.

Another interesting issue is reported by the BBC in China. Even though the country has stemmed the spread of the virus, even tentatively re-opening public life, the threat of importing the virus once again from elsewhere is now present. This shows that no matter the effectiveness of a government’s response, travel remains a risk for spreading until either a vaccine or herd immunity are in effect.