Britain Could Never Eradicate Covid-19 — Even if It Banned All International Travel Top Experts Believe

Britain could never eradicate Covid-19 — even if it banned all international travel, top experts believe.
Professor Paul Hunter, an infectious disease specialist based at the University of East Anglia, insisted closing the borders would not have stopped the crisis taking hold in the UK.
Research suggests the [/news/coronavirus/index.html coronavirus] was already spreading between Britons before it was formally recognised as a threat in February, by which time it would have been too late to crack down.
And imposing one now would 'do nothing to affect the current epidemic', according to Professor Hunter, other than potentially prevent localised outbreaks caused by a 'patient zero' who caught the virus while abroad.
Experts have admitted the disease will be around 'forever', even if a vaccine is found, because it is so established now.

But disease is likely to become milder over time as people develop some immunity towards it.  
Some scientists believe 'Zero Covid' — a strategy which aims for elimination of the coronavirus — can be achieved by limiting international travel. But ministers were told by scientific advisers early on that blocking travel was 'really not worth trying to do' unless the measures were 'extremely draconian'. 
Now Britons are allowed to go on holidays again but must quarantine for 14 days if they go to a country with high cases, such as Italy. 
Lifting of travel bans was blamed for local outbreaks in the UK in the summer, such as a cluster of up to 30 cases in Cardiff linked to youngsters flying home from the party island of Zante, phượng hoàng cổ trấn Greece, in August. 
And one of the Government's own top experts knows that banning travel does not work and only delays an inevitable crisis. Professor Jonathan Van Tam, who worked with the Government agency Public Health England (PHE), found that at least 90 per cent of air travel would need to stop in order to make a difference.  
Britain could never eradicate Covid-19 — even if it banned all international travel, top experts believe.

Pictured: kynghidongduong.vn A public health message on an arrival board at Heathrow Airport, July
The Government was adamant to keep travel corridors open, making it an outlier compared to the rest of the world.

Pictured, passengers are welcomed back to Sydney from New Zealand in October after border rules in Australia were relaxed 
A pre-departure rapid Covid-19 testing facility was launched at Heathrow Airport on Tuesday with the aim of boosting confidence in Britons to travel again
Several top scientists have backed a Zero Covid strategy, which aims to eliminate the virus in a region or country rather than just suppress it.
Professor Martin McKee, of London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, says Zero Covid is 'definitely' possible in the UK. 
He was the co-author of a paper published in the Lancet back in September, which concluded: 'The argument is strong for countries adopting a so-called zero-Covid strategy, which aims to eliminate domestic transmission.'  
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<div class="art-ins mol-factbox floatRHS news" data-version="2" id="mol-c28c0b00-0e37-11eb-beca-290d20cde2e1" website couldn't eradicate Covid-19 even if it banned travel