While the evidence for the benefits of border closures and travel controls was weak, so was proof for the counterargument.36 The case against travel restrictions is based on a small number of studies showing that closing borders will delay but not prevent spread and can do more harm than good by destabilizing regions where an outbreak is occurring, causing people to flee hot zones. However, there’s no firm data to support the notion that travel bans are bad. After they were used in COVID, there was a belief that they helped some and little convincing data to say they didn’t.
