The OECD Initiative for Safe International Mobility during the COVID-19[1] Pandemic

It includes a safe travel plan and a temporary international cross-industry forum for knowledge exchange.

OECD ministers approved a new initiative to promote safe international travel during the COVID-‑19 pandemic at the annual OECD ministerial meeting in Paris. 

The initiative includes a safe travel plan and a temporary international cross-industry forum for knowledge exchange. The Forum will allow governments and stakeholders to share real-time information on plans and approaches to facilitate travel. The plan promotes greater confidence, safety and reliability in travel as it is reopened. It builds on existing initiatives and aims to improve interoperability between travel modes. It will be implemented by countries on a voluntary basis.

At the time of publication of the survey in May 2021, most people in OECD countries were not vaccinated, and the situation was even worse in developing countries. Several OECD countries were in the midst of the third wave of the pandemic, intensive care units were operating at full capacity and thousands of people were dying every day. The least invasive non-pharmaceutical interventions did not control the spread of the virus, and many countries moved to restrict daily activities. In this context, countries have taken additional measures to restrict cross-border travel.

The human and economic costs of restricting international mobility are significant.Suspension of travel and tourism has a negative impact on the economy as a whole, given the interconnected nature of the global economy. The OECD estimates, for example, that more than a third of the added value of tourism created in the domestic economy is an indirect impact.

Economic costs of restricting international mobility

Restrictions on international travel have led to an unprecedented reduction in the number of international travelers with devastating consequences for certain sectors:

The industries providing international transportation experienced a sharp decline: 

• international air passenger traffic, measured in passenger-kilometers with revenue from the industry, has decreased by 90% or more since April 2020 compared to the previous year; 
• the cruise industry lost 25 million passengers in 2020, compared to the 32 million passengers expected before the pandemic. 
• In 2020, the drop in the number of passengers of international rail transport in Europe was about 90%.

Suspension of travel and tourism has a serious negative macroeconomic impact, given the interconnected nature of these sectors. The OECD countries most at risk, including Greece, Iceland, Portugal, Mexico and Spain, are among those that experienced the largest drop in GDP in 2020. 

Indeed, the pre-crisis size of the travel and tourism sector better explains the differences in GDP growth than the impact on any of the other sectors most vulnerable to the pandemic, or the average severity of broader isolation measures. The regression analysis also suggests that an increase in the impact on the travel and tourism sector by 10 percentage points of GDP increased the impact on GDP by almost 3 percentage points in 2020 after taking into account other factors such as isolation measures.

Therefore, although the current situation is developing, it may not be conducive to easing the existing restrictions on international travel, it is reasonable to plan for the future when it is well prepared and has all the necessary systems in working order. Travelers will rely on a mixture of vaccines and tests. However, if there is no international basis for a travel policy, the result will be a mixture of national and regional regulations that are incompatible with each other, including different vaccination evidence or test results that must be presented when people cross the border in the country of origin and / or destination. This will be confusing and costly for travelers, transport and tourism companies, and hinder travel and tourism due to uncertainty and difficulties in management.

The OECD initiative is designed to help solve these problems and promote greater consistency in international travel policy. It does not seek to replace other international initiatives, but rather supports and complements them, either accelerating them or helping to ensure their adoption by a wider range of countries.

Process

As a first step in this initiative, the OECD Secretariat has prepared four background documents:

• on the economic consequences of travel restrictions; 
• testing protocols; 
• data exchange and privacy.
• possible forms that any agreement can take. 

During a series of bilateral and multilateral meetings and consultations with countries, internationa.organizations and other stakeholders, the issues raised in these documents were discussed. 

In order to expedite the discussion process, a draft “plan” was prepared. In doing so, where possible, existing mechanisms were directly used, avoiding duplication and building on work already done in other forums, in particular, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the EU.

On February 5, 2021, the draft was also submitted to the following committees and other bodies for information and comments:

• Digital Economy Policy
• Health Committee
• Regulatory Policy Committee
• Tourism Committee
• Trade Committee
• Transport Management Council (ITF)
• Transport Research Committee (ITF)
• Working Group on Migration.

In addition to consultations through the committees, the delegations were invited to appoint a national contact point responsible for coordinating positions at the national level and national interaction with the OECD. The responses provided by the countries were included in DELSA / HEA (2021) 2 / REV2 (The concept of safe international travel during the COVID-19 pandemic: comments of the Committees).

Developments

The pandemic is developing rapidly, and there have been a number of changes both in the epidemiological situation and in the national and international response, which required adjustments in some aspects of the Program.

Vaccination has occurred quickly in some OECD countries, especially in Israel, where more than half of the adult population has already received at least one vaccination. Chile, the United Kingdom and the United States follow the example of Israel.  It is estimated that many other OECD countries have only two to three months left before reaching a similar milestone.  

It is clear that vaccines are effective in preventing deaths and serious diseases, and there is increasing evidence that they prevent mild disease and are likely to be effective in reducing transmission in the community, even though levels of protection may vary from one vaccine to the other, and the evidence base is still being developed. Vaccination changes both the main risks associated with travel, and the perception of risks and preferences of the population of the country. This is reflected in the updated project.

Plan for safe international travel during ‑the COVID-19 pandemic

General recommendations

The following recommendations for travelers, consistent with the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), apply, including for vaccinated travelers:

1. Do not travel during illness, including confirmed, probable and suspected (contact) cases;

2. Observe the rules of hand and respiratory hygiene;

3. Wear a surgical mask or filter respirator that properly covers the mouth and nose (with appropriate exceptions);

4. As far as possible, practice physical distancing to reduce the risk of spreading the disease; 

5. Follow the instructions of the port staff or carrier.

Principles

The system is based on the following principles:

I.A relative risk approach: the protocol should aim to reduce the risk exposure to a residual level that is considered acceptable by national authorities and meets the requirements of the World Health Organization (WHO). 

II. Accounting for the epidemiological situation: restrictions on international travel should correspond to the epidemiological situation in the country of origin and destination.

III. Equal treatment of travelers: all travelers should be treated equally and fairly, taking into account the previous paragraph about the epidemiological situation. Safe travel should be facilitated by providing evidence of vaccination or recovery (if this is allowed by national policy) or tests demonstrating that the traveler is not contagious.

IV. Proper application of the quarantine regime: the plan is aimed at ensuring the proper application of the quarantine regime. In situations with the lowest epidemiological risk, the use of testing, genomic sequencing of positive cases and proper data collection for tracking contact persons will provide relevant information about the prevalence of the disease among travelers and the emergence of new strains of concern. The quarantine regime would be a tool applicable to cases of increased epidemiological risk, with the possibility of early termination of isolation based on the results of diagnostic tests. Where people are vaccinated and national policies keep accurate records of vaccination rates as part of their travel policy, quarantine may not be required.

V. Reliance on national verification systems: countries participating in the system will recognize vaccine certificates, recovery certificates and test results that have been approved by the national authorities of other participating countries, in the relevant subnational jurisdictions, taking into account the current discussions of international systems in WHO, ICAO and the EU.

VI. Simplicity and dependence on existing systems: the complexity of processes and the amount of information collected and transmitted should be minimized. The system should be based only on the collection of strictly necessary data (data minimization and confidentiality) and on the maximum possible use of existing tools and systems for the exchange of information in accordance with the applicable data protection rules.

VII. Compatibility, security and ensuring data privacy: the system must be compatible and based on a common nomenclature and format for transmitting information (subject to agreement). The system must also comply with the principle of "data confidentiality", according to which the content, mode of collection, purpose of collection and duration of storage of any or all collected data will be clear to the data subject from the very beginning.

VIII. Recognition of other international agreements: IN cases where countries are part of a single supranational group, such as the EU, nothing in the plan should be considered as a substitute for agreements concluded in this body concerning travel within the countries belonging to this group. In particular, it is recognized that EU Member States are committed to the free movement of people and that Council Recommendation (EU) 2021/119 dated February 1, 2021 on the amendment of Recommendation (EU) 2020/147 will be applied within the EU.

IX. Priority of national legislation: the draft contains policy guidelines and is not a legal document.

[1] https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/oecd-initiative-for-safe-international-mobility-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-including-blueprint-d0594162/