International Travel-Related Control Measures to contain The Covid-19 Pandemic: An update to a Cochrane Rapid Review

  1. Ameer Hohlfeld
  2. Leila Abdullahi
  3. Ahmed M. Abou-Setta
  4. Mark E Engel

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Abstract

Background

COVID-19 has proven to be more difficult to manage for many reasons including its high infectivity rate. One of the potential ways to limit its spread is by controlling international travel. The objective of this systematic review is to identify, critically-appraise and summarize evidence on international travel-related control measures.

Methods

This review is based on the Cochrane review: International travel-related control measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic and followed the same methods. In brief, we searched for clinical and modelling studies in general health and COVID-19-specific bibliographic databases. The primary outcome categories were (i) cases avoided, (ii) a shift in epidemic development and, (iii) cases detected. Secondary outcomes were other infectious disease transmission outcomes, healthcare utilisation, resource requirements and adverse effects if identified in studies assessing at least one primary outcome.

Results

We assessed 66 full-text articles that met with our inclusion criteria. Seventeen new studies (modelling = 9, observational = 8) were identified in the updated search. Most studies were of critical to moderate risk of bias. The added studies did not change the main conclusions of the Cochrane review nor the quality of the evidence (very low to low certainty). However, it did add to the evidence base for most outcomes.

Conclusions

Weak evidence supports the use of international travel-related control measures to limit the spread of COVID-19 via air travel. Real-world studies are required to support these conclusions.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.03.24.22271703: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    RandomizationTypes of studies: randomized trials, non-randomized trials, observational studies, and modelling studies on the effects of travel-related control measures affecting human travel during the COVID-19 pandemic Search methods for identification of studies: We adapted the search strategies from Burns 2021, by excluding terms not-related to COVID- 19 (such as MERS, H1N1, SARS01).
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    We searched Scopus, Pubmed, the Cochrane COVID-19 WHO COVID-19 Global Literature on Coronavirus disease, MedRXiv and BioRXiv.
    Pubmed
    suggested: (PubMed, RRID:SCR_004846)
    BioRXiv
    suggested: (bioRxiv, RRID:SCR_003933)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2022.03.24.22271703 on medRxiv