Talk:Travel during the COVID-19 pandemic

Mongolia ban til end of may

Not sure how to edit the SVG map and article. Mongolia has banned all international flights, and all trains from russia; they've also banned all entry by chinese citizens or anyone who has been in China. They don't have a single regulation that says "no foreigners!" but since both land borders are closed, and there are no flights, I think mongolia should be red on the map. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.2.205.97 (talk) 19:33, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

There are multiple border crossings with Russia, not only those for the trains.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:40, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Israeli travel restrictions

Currently one of the most controversial countries to impose necessary / Draconian restrictions was Israel: no entry from many EU + Switzerland (in addition to Korea Japan China). Flights cancelled and companies sick as Lufthansa, Swiss, alitalia Iberia and more stopped flying to Israel. Many believe in the conspiration that this is politically charged after tie elections (2/march) with no clear winner. רותםכהן646 (talk) 09:16, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

White House didn’t tell seniors not to fly, add ?

The White House overruled health officials who wanted to warn Americans to avoid commercial airlines because of the coronavirus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) originally submitted a plan that recommended that elderly and medically vulnerable Americans avoid flying as a way of trying to control the outbreak, but the White House ordered the air travel language removed from from the plan. The Trump administration, however, has since issued guidance that certain people should not be traveling and the CDC quietly updated its website to tell older adults to "stay home as much as possible" and avoid crowds. Administration officials pushed back, calling it "complete fiction" and saying "it was never a recommendation to the Task Force."

• Mike Stobbe Official: White House didn’t want to tell seniors not to fly March 7, 2020 apnews.com

X1\ (talk) 06:48, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

X1, is there a specific edit request or suggestion here? Where would you recommend this be added? Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 02:23, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Philippines

On March 12, 2020, the Philippines government announced travel restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The government has not yet listed all the restricted countries (except to say "entry travel restrictions shall be imposed upon those traveling from countries with localized COVID-19 transmissions"). I'm not sure how this fits within the format of the page.

Land, domestic air, and domestic sea travel to and from Metro Manila shall be suspended from March 15 until April 14, 2020 (international departures will be permitted). Entry travel restrictions shall be imposed upon those traveling from countries with localized COVID-19 transmissions, except for Filipino citizens (including their foreign spouse and children) or holders of Permanent Resident Visas and Diplomat Visas.

References

Ban issued March 22: is it considered a global travel ban?

The Philippine government has announced a travel ban affecting all foreign nationalities from March 22 , but is that considered a global travel ban? I have been considering adding that to the list on the past days.

References

--TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 02:35, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

It's not limited to specific countries, that makes it global. --mfb (talk) 05:45, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

WikiProject COVID-19

I've created WikiProject COVID-19 as a temporary or permanent WikiProject and invite editors to use this space for discussing ways to improve coverage of the ongoing 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic. Please bring your ideas to the project/talk page. Stay safe, ---Another Believer _(Talk) 16:42, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Travel restrictions imposed by South Africa

South Africa has just imposed the following travel restrictions:

• From 18th March, admission refused to nationals of designated "high-risk" countries: Italy, Iran, South Korea, Spain, Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom and China
• Additionally, admission is refused to any other foreign national who has travelled to or transited through any of the aforementioned "high-risk" countries in the past 20 days

Source:

I'm finding the layout of this page confusing, and I also don't have the technical skills to edit the various maps -- would someone be able to do this on my behalf? Ron2K (talk) 19:11, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Hungary Prime Minister announcement

I just added Hungary to the list of countries with worldwide travel ban, but it seems it's just an announcement of a future decision, rather than the decision itself. Feel free to remove if not relevant (yet) to a Wikipedia article. --Bmaisonny (talk) 15:36, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Proposal: change article structure

As more and more countries decide various sorts of restrictions for various nationals, I would suggest to revamp this article completely. For example, it could be presented as a table, listing all countries in the 1st column, then maybe 4 other columns indicating general types of restrictions:

Countries and territories	Global entry ban	Global quarantine	Limited entry ban	Limited quarantine
Argentina	From March 16
Australia		From March 16; 14 days from day of arrival
New Zealand		China and Iran		Visitors from all nations except the Pacific Islands to self-isolate for 14 days on arrival
Japan			Passengers who have been in affected regions of China, South Korea or Italy within the last 14 days, except Japanese nationals, their spouses and children

--Bmaisonny (talk) 16:00, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Sounds good. It is easier to keep track of restrictions that way. The list can be split by continent. We'll need some special treatment of the Schengen area, however. The whole area makes decisions, but the countries within make their own decisions as well. --mfb (talk) 04:49, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@Bmaisonny: I encourage you to implement this. Widely varying travel bans have proliferated and I don't think it's realistic to bring this article to any level of completeness in the current structure. In its current state it's misleading by implying that entry bans are much less widespread than they are. —Granger (talk · contribs) 19:10, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

I've taken a step towards the rearrangement suggested here (without the table formatting). The misleading incompleteness and inconsistency of the previous version was too severe. I'll keep working on expanding and improving the article from here. —Granger (talk · contribs) 20:58, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

UAE not total entry ban

Hello, old editor here. UAE doesn't have a global entry ban. Many countries still get visa on arrival

According to the Dubai Airports website, dated March 17th: "Effective March 17, UAE authorities have temporarily suspended the issuance of entry visas. This does not apply to those passengers holding diplomatic passports (exceptions apply, check prior to travel) or those who have had visas issued prior to March 17.

It also does not apply to passengers who hold passports from the following countries. These passengers can continue to travel to and from the UAE although may be subject to additional screening."

https://www.dubaiairports.ae/alert/latest-covid-19-update

Waerth (talk) 15:30, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, updated. --mfb (talk) 04:54, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Shengen area closing

I added myself info that the Shengen area countries will implement travel ban, based on news circluated after Macron's address to the nation on 16 March. Then, as there was no follow-up, I commented the info out. It was later uncommented, with some references added, however, we are well past the proposed implementation date (17 Mat noon), and I doubt that the travel ban has actually been enforced. At least I am in a Shengen country now, and I was not able to find a source saying "Starting from <time>, the non-EU citizens were turned dowen at the border / denied boarding / flight cancelled". I am not sure it actually occurred, and I am afraid we might be hosting misinformation in this article.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:58, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

The heads of state and government endorsed the proposal yesterday, see [1]. However, it is up to every member state to implement it on a national level. Maybe we could change the text, so that instead of saying that it has been introduced, just say that the proposal was put forward by the European Commission and endorsed by the European Council on 17 March 2020. And that the member states implement it now on a national level. --Glentamara (talk) 09:39, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

As a concrete example, the Swedish government adopted yesterday (17 March 2020) an ordinance that enters into force tomorrow (19 March 2020) and which implements the proposal by the European Commission in Sweden, see [2] (unfortunately only in Swedish). --Glentamara (talk) 09:45, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

(ec) Yes, this would be a reasonable course of action, though I would prefer a secondary source.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:45, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Well, there are plenty of secondary sources. There was one already in the article, see [3], [4], [5]. --Glentamara (talk) 19:49, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, this is fine with me.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:12, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Trans Tasman Closing Borders

The image that has the following descriptor "Countries that have implemented a global travel ban in response to the COVID-19 pandemic", must colour in Australia and New Zealand closing their borders 2001:8003:38D0:A01:3D8C:BC9A:D73F:ECD9 (talk) 13:54, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Added them. --mfb (talk) 01:05, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Countries by continent

Concerning this edit: [6] - apart from the fact that edit-warring is not really acceptable and that calling you opponents' edits vandalism in this case is a personal attack - we probably indeed should agree that list of countries by continent should follow our usual conventions, which specifically means Russia in Europe, Turkey and Cyprus in Asia?--Ymblanter (talk) 12:07, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

I get that Cyprus is not a trans-continental country and it needs to be listed under Asia section but Russia and Turkey are both trans-continental country. So in my opinion we have to list these countries under the same section? DarkPirate35 (talk) 14:08, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Most of Turkey is in Asia, both by population and by area. Not listing it in Asia is silly. Most Russians live in Europe, that is a different situation. I think we should add both in both continents, however, in the same way we do this in the navbox. --mfb (talk) 03:10, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. We should add Russia and Turkey in both continents. DarkPirate35 (talk) 13:50, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Vox reference in the lede

The last sentence in the lede says that the effectiveness of travel bans was questioned and as a reference gives an article from 23 January. Now we have 3 April, and we already look at things very differently. Whereas I am not aware of anybody disputing this particular article, it is clear that the argumentation, from the point of view of today, is very naive, and it can not really be used to support the statement. I propose to remove the ref.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:32, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Map

Regarding the map, from my POV it is not 100 percent correct to mark the whole Schengen area. Entry from non-Schengen countries may be banned, but Germany or the Netherlands still allow EU citizen to enter the country, at least at some borders.--Antemister (talk) 21:43, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

• Where is the map? who removed it? Germartin1 (talk) 11:28, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

• The map is here, but it was removed on July 3^rd, 2020 by someone because it was outdated! Instead of updating the map, the user has removed it all together! I wish the map could be updated and brought back on the page Jack72 (talk) 17:29, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jack72 (talk • contribs) 17:37, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Is this article supposed to show current restrictions or detail past and present restrictions?

Much of the text appears to be written in a "these are the current restrictions" manner. When looking at the article's history, information about past restrictions has been replaced for many countries. I will use Croatia as an example:

In this edit (28 August), Croatia's paragraph reads: Closed its borders to non-citizens on 19 March. The country reopened its borders to travellers from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia, Germany and Slovakia on 29 May.

In the current edit (3 December), Croatia's paragraph reads: Entry from EU countries (including UK, Vatican City, Andorra, Monaco, Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and San Marino) is allowed with no restrictions.

Is there a reason for information about past restrictions to be removed? It seems like it would be important to detail how restrictions changed over time. Velayinosu (talk) 01:54, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Velayinosu, I think it makes more sense to retain previous restrictions, as that is encyclopedically useful. A likely reason as to why restrictions are getting changed might be the way each nation is being displayed as its own bullet point; keeping the previous restrictions would make each bullet point very large.

Suggestion: Perhaps it'd be better to make each nation its own subsection and create a list of restriction changes within each one. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 02:27, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Generally a better structural approach, only given the number of countries covered in this article I'd suspect problems with maintanance as well as overall size. Maybe a separate timeline chapter highlighting certain phases like "In late spring 2020 most EU countries decided to issue travel warnings targeting all non-EU-countries" might be an alternative. -- Kohraa Mondel (talk) 07:41, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

 Comment: I'm afraid the approach of tracking worldwide restrictions is infeasible. I think this page should be simply trimmed and merged with National responses to the COVID-19 pandemic -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 02:34, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

• This looks like one more battle in the ongoing war against inappropriate WP:Recentism. If the topic is notable enough to have a Wikipedia page, the history should be notable, not just the present conditions. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:22, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

US reopens borders with restrictions - not sure which section to put this in.

The US has reopened it's borders (20 September 2021) to people who have received COVID19 vaccines in early November (source)

As this isn't an official reopening with no restrictions (non vaccinated people cannot enter the country) nor is it a partial ban for members of a particular country, I'm not quite sure which section to put it in.

Tanaya001 (talk) 00:26, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Regarding US opening. This statement "On 8 November 2021, after nearly 20 months of travel ban, vaccinated international tourists were allowed to travel to the USA.[226]" is blatantly incorrect. International tourists were able to enter the US all the time (2020 through 2021). Only land borders were closed (for non-essential travel) and air borders were closed to tourists from select few countries (Europe, Brazil etc.). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Denislagno (talk • contribs) 20:41, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Japan and China open borders for foreigners.

October 2022 was when Japan opened its borders, whilst March 2023 was when China opened its borders. Would you consider adding that? Nathanlong3010 (talk) 05:14, 1 April 2024 (UTC)