Did travel truly spread infectious disease? The case of influenza during New Year vacation in Japan

Kurita, Junko; Sugawara, Tamie; Ohkusa, Yasushi

doi:10.51094/jxiv.676

##article.authors##

Kurita, Junko Department of Nursing, Faculty of Sport and Health Science, Daito Bunka University
Sugawara, Tamie Infectious Disease Surveillance Center, National Institute of Infectious Diseases
Ohkusa, Yasushi Infectious Disease Surveillance Center, National Institute of Infectious Diseases

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51094/jxiv.676

キーワード:

COVID-19、 airport users、 hotel visitors、 mobility、 effective reproduction number、 Go To Travel Campaign

抄録

Background: In Japan, long-distance domestic travel was banned while the SARS-Cov-2 original strain was dominant under the first declared state of emergency from April 7, 2020 until the end of May, 2020. Subsequently, the “Go To Travel Campaign” (GTTC) travel subsidy policy was activated until the second state of emergency was declared, with long-distance domestic travel banned from January 7, 2021.

Object: We consider how travelling affects the infectivity of infectious diseases by examining influenza activity before and after the New Year vacation period.

Method: We examined the slope of the cumulative number of influenza cases in January 4–7 or after to ascertain whether it was steeper than in the 10 seasons preceding the COVID-19 pandemic, which emerged in 2020.

Results: The estimated slope during January 4–7 and after was not significantly higher than the slope in December.

Discussion and Conclusion: We can find no evidence of higher infectivity attributable to intensive and extensive travel activities during the New Year vacation.

利益相反に関する開示

No author has any conflict of interest, financial or otherwise, to declare in relation to this study.

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