> Taiwan,
Island.
> Japan,
Island.
> Australia,
Island.
> New Zealand,
Island.
> South Korea
Effectively an island—peninsula with the only land access being through the most heavily militarized border in the world.
When I suggest we should suspend all air travel except for freight and bring back border checks in the EU during lockdown, all my friends react like it's pure heresy.
In hindsight historians will look back at this as our biggest failing. Allowing for travel in the name of economy whilst prolonging economic damage plus increasing disease/deaths.
Half measures are a short distance from no measures at all in terms of virus containment.
<< In summary, we fail to find strong evidence supporting a role for more restrictive NPIs in the control of COVID in early 2020. We do not question the role of all public health interventions, or of coordinated communications about the epidemic, but we fail to find an additional benefit of stay-at-home orders and business closures.
The data cannot fully exclude the possibility of some benefits. However, even if they exist, these benefits may not match the numerous harms of these aggressive measures. More targeted public health interventions that more effectively reduce transmissions may be important for future epidemic control without the harms of highly restrictive measures. >>
[0] https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/stanford-study-lockdowns-h...
If you think about it, most countries in the world only have limited ports of entry (no matter the size of the border), and if a national government shuts off these ports of entry, the country essentially becomes an "island" whether they have a surrounding body of water or not. (assuming strong borders and no illegal traversals -- which may or may not be good assumptions depending on where you are, but it's a simplifying assumption for the sake of discussion).
Montreal is an island but its COVID rates are far worse than Toronto. There's nothing special about being an island. It's about the connectivity.
However, up until recently very lax on air travellers and even now actually checking some.
This is what I found for Australia:
> Since March last year, Australia has essentially allowed only returning residents to enter the country, provided they complete a 14-day quarantine - usually in city hotels.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-55929180
It seems they stopped allowing tourists to fly and were very strict from very early in the pandemic
In an alternate measure, we finally see a NY-based trip enter the list at number 8, with the countries listed above remaining much busier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_...