Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness

July 23, 2020

The Effect of Border Controls on the Risk of COVID-19 Reincursion from International Arrivals

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  • [Preprint, not peer reviewed] Steyn et al. predicted the risk of undetected COVID-19 cases within managed isolation and quarantine facilities and the risk of infectious cases being released into the community using data during a two-week period (June 23 to July 6, 2020) in New Zealand.  
  • Under the current 14-day quarantine order, a combination of testing on days 3 and 12, daily symptom checks, and complete isolation of confirmed cases would reduce the risk of releasing an infectious case to an estimated 0.1% per arriving case. Shorter quarantine periods or reliance on testing only with no quarantine substantially increased the predicted risk. The ratio of cases detected on day 3 versus day 12 could be an effective indicator of the level of transmission. 

Steyn et al. (July 22, 2020). The Effect of Border Controls on the Risk of COVID-19 Reincursion from International Arrivals. Pre-print downloaded July 23 from https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.15.20154955