Association of sightseeing tourists and COVID-19 outbreak: A case study of a resort island
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51094/jxiv.318Keywords:
COVID-19, airport users, effective reproduction number, hotel visitors, resort island, sightseeing touristsAbstract
Long-distance travel for sightseeing was believed to spread the COVID-19 outbreak. It was banned until 2022. However, details of travel effects on infectivity had never been examined. This study was conducted to assess long-distance travel effects on infectivity at a resort island, including a period when mutated strains were dominant. Unique daily data of Yakushima Airport users and visitors at a major hotel in Yakushima were used to evaluate sightseeing tourism effects on newly confirmed COVID-19 patients. During the study period of August 19, 2020 – August 10, 2022, the Omicron variant strain was dominant. Sightseeing tourists as represented by airport users were found to have no significant effect on infectivity. Hotel visitors might have had a significant positive effect, but the expected magnitude of the effect was one patient, at most. Results suggest that sightseeing tourists did not heavily affect the COVID-19 outbreak.
Conflicts of Interest Disclosure
No author has any conflict of interest, financial or otherwise, to declare in relation to this study.Downloads *Displays the aggregated results up to the previous day.
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Submitted: 2023-02-28 06:07:06 UTC
Published: 2023-03-02 00:18:56 UTC
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Junko Kurita
Yoshitaro Iwasaki
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