In a Pandemic, Migration Away from Dense Cities More Effective than Closing Borders

Pandemics are fueled, in part, by dense populations in large cities where networks of buildings, crowded sidewalks, and public transportation force people into tighter conditions. This contrasts with conditions in rural areas, where there is more space available per person.

In a paper published in Chaos, by AIP Publishing, two researchers decided to put this hypothesis to the test and discover if confinement and travels bans are really effective ways to limit the spread of a pandemic disease. Specifically, they focused on the movement of people from larger cities to smaller ones and tested the results of this one-way migration.

“Instead of taking mobility, or the lack of mobility, for granted, we decided to explore how an altered mobility would affect the spreading,” author Massimiliano Zanin said. “The real answer lies in the sign of the result. People always assume that closing borders is good. We found that it is almost always bad.”

Release date: 17 November 2020
Source: American Institute of Physics