The experience with B.1.1.7 shows how slower entry of a variant to a country delays the deterioration of the health situation and the introduction of strict and costly lockdowns. [...] By the end of 2021, large parts of the populations of Israel, Chile, the US, the UK and the EU will have received the vaccine and will be largely immune to the wild strain and some variants of COVID-19. [...] Once this has happened, a new variant’s effective reproduction rates in the immunised and non-immunized parts of the population depend not only on the characteristic basic reproduction numbers R0 and R0’, but also on the contact and hygiene behaviour in the two parts of the population. [...] Relative to the cost of travel, a standard test would increase the cost of a flight by perhaps around €40 – and it would require the time of the individual to get tested. [...] The costs are thus not zero but are small relative to the costs of further waves of contagion: the economic costs of lockdowns and similar restrictions, let alone an uncontrolled pandemic, are many times the costs of the measures we propose (Cutler and Summers, 2020).
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- Belgium
