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December 2, 2021


Dear John xxxxxx,

With the detection of the COVID-19 Omicron variant in Southern Africa in early November and its subsequent appearance in more than 20 countries on several continents, the world once again is scrambling to manage the latest pandemic curveball. Some governments have chosen to ban all incoming travel, others have barred arrivals from several countries mostly in Southern Africa, and yet others have reinstated measures such as mask wearing, vaccine requirements, and digital surveillance.

"Yet once again this response has been unilateral and uncoordinated," says MPI Director for International Research Meghan Benton, adding that Omicron-related travel restrictions imposed weeks after the first case of infection was detected are likely to be "both leaky and too late -- and unlikely to hold up to any cost-benefit analysis."

In a new commentary, Benton examines the contested role of travel restrictions. While noting that curbs on mobility are highly unlikely to prevent a dominant variant (such as the earlier Delta variant) from taking hold, she sketches a scenario under which such measures can offer a short-term complement to public-health and universal travel requirements such as vaccination and testing.

Read the commentary here: www.migrationpolicy.org/news/omicron-travel-restrictions.

"But governments will need to proceed carefully to ensure that travel bans do not become sticky and outlast their public-health benefits, in part because their role as 'pandemic theatrics' means the political cost of lifting them can be high," she writes.

The more important goal would be to achieve global standards for international travel and pandemic management-a reality still elusive nearly two years into the public-health crisis.

I commend this interesting commentary to your attention.

For all of MPI's research on the pandemic, visit: www.migrationpolicy.org/topics/coronavirus.

And to hear from experts from around the world about how the pandemic is reshaping mobility, tune in to our podcast, Moving Beyond Pandemic: www.migrationpolicy.org/about/moving-beyond-pandemic-podcast.

With appreciation, as always, for your interest in our work.

Michelle Mittelstadt
Director of Communications and Public Affairs,
Migration Policy Institute

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The Migration Policy Institute is an independent, nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C. dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide. MPI provides analysis, development, and evaluation of migration and refugee policies at the local, national, and international levels. For more on MPI, please visit www.migrationpolicy.org.

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