ALLOWING quarantine-free travel to Greece last summer may have had a significant contribution to the spread of coronavirus, according to a Public Health England study.
Travel corridors, which exempted people from needing to self-isolate when returning from abroad, were linked to higher rates of onward transition of imported cases, researchers said.
They argued the genomics study demonstrates the effectiveness of travel restrictions in reducing the spread of Covid-19, with restrictions linked to a 40% lower rate of contacts.
The mean number of cases of a specific genetic variant detected four weeks after likely import was 11.3 when travel restrictions were not in place, compared to 1.2 when they were.
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Travel from the European countries accounted for 86% of imported cases between May and September, according to the study, which is yet to be peer-reviewed.
Greece, which had quarantine-less travel for the entire period, was “the source of greatest imported” Covid-19 cases, accounting for 21% of travel-linked cases, or 882 infections in the study of 4,207 cases.
The next highest were Croatia, which was taken off England's exemption list on August 22 and accounted for 16%, and Spain, removed on July 26 and accounting for 14%.
“This highlights the need for active surveillance of imported cases of Sars-CoV-2 for the introduction of travel corridors in a timely manner,” the study, worked on by academics from PHE, Cambridge University and the Covid-19 Genomics UK consortium, said.
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The travel corridor policy introduced in July exempted people from 14 days of quarantine when returning from countries deemed safe, a period later reduced to 10.
A Department for Transport spokesman said: “As this report rightly points out, travel restrictions imposed by Government were effective in reducing the transmission of imported cases of Covid-19.
“Guided by the latest scientific data, the Government acted rapidly to remove travel corridors with Greece and Spain, and we continue to have robust measures in place to protect the country against imported cases of the virus.”
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