What is the future for travel and migration in age of Covid-19?

Our globalised world has been brought to a crashing halt by coronavirus. By April, over 90% of the world’s population – 7.1b people – lived in countries with coronavirus-related travel restrictions on people arriving from abroad, a Pew study found. And while local lockdowns are starting to ease in many countries now, the pause on international travel is likely to last far longer. With countries still focused on staving off a second wave of infections, there is little appetite for rapid reopening. “Travel and immigration – for work, study, seeking asylum – is going to be disrupted much longer than our daily lives, in a way unprecedented in our lifetimes,” said Prof Lindsay Wiley from the American University Washington College of Law. Senior figures in the aviation industry have already said they expect it to be several years before passenger demand returns to 2019 levels, if it ever does. Countries that acted fast to bring the disease under control – at least for now – are exploring ways to open up a limited “bubble” for their citizens to travel without restriction. The first to discuss the idea were New Zealand and Australia. Nine countries scattered across the world, but united in their successful handling of the virus are also actively seeking ways of setting up travel bubbles or corridors, broadening an unlikely alliance. In their second meeting via teleconference on Thursday, the leaders of Austria, Greece, Israel, Norway, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand agreed that as each begins to ease restrictions they could capitalise on low infection rates by creating tourism safe zones. Story has more. <br/>