And no, land borders don't matter that much. They aren't a strong infection vector. You can just close the borders. The vast majority of infections come from air travel, not land travel that is essentially zero.
Were also not taking about the EU here, the Article is American, and there aren't a billion people neither in Europe nor in North America.
Incidentally, the modalities for the Schengen zone allow authorities to close down borders in such circumstances.
The island argument is a mirage. We're in 2021, land travel can be brought to ~0 and air travel always was the dominant vector of infection.
I presume you have never been in Europe. There barely any borders to close and a lot of people live in one country and work in another. You can’t block that for a year.
In Baarle Nassau in the Netherlands there is a store, and half of it is in the Netherlands and half of it is in Belgium.
By the way, air travel has been ~0 for a year now. Unfortunately it has not in fact stopped the pandemic. Must be the no true lockdown: if it doesn’t work we just say it wasn’t strict enough.
Canada closed some of the internal borders between its provinces; something that has never happened before. Some road blocks, some of its based simply on the honour system. Here in Ontario, I cannot legally visit anywhere east of Quebec right now without quarantining on arrival for 2 weeks. And some remote communities are literally barricaded from entry.
The regions that did quarantine themselves like that (the Atlantic provinces) are in fact doing much better than the rest of the country. Newfoundland is in near-total suppression. Though unlike some others in this thread I do believe being an island is helpful, even if just psychologically.
And no, land borders don't matter that much. They aren't a strong infection vector. You can just close the borders. The vast majority of infections come from air travel, not land travel that is essentially zero.
Were also not taking about the EU here, the Article is American, and there aren't a billion people neither in Europe nor in North America.
Incidentally, the modalities for the Schengen zone allow authorities to close down borders in such circumstances.
The island argument is a mirage. We're in 2021, land travel can be brought to ~0 and air travel always was the dominant vector of infection.