Fifteen days in December: capture and analysis of Omicron-related travel restrictions.

Following the identification of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in late November 2021, governments worldwide took actions intended to minimise the impact of the new variant within their borders. Despite guidance from the WHO advising a risk-based approach, many rapidly implemented stringent policies focused on travel restrictions. In this paper, we capture 221 national-level travel policies issued during the 3 weeks following publicisation of the Omicron variant. We characterise policies based on whether they target travellers from specific countries or focus more broadly on enhanced screening, and explore differences in approaches at the regional level. We find that initial reactions almost universally focused on entry bans and flight suspensions from Southern Africa, and that policies continued to target travel from these countries even after community transmission of the Omicron variant was detected elsewhere in the world. While layered testing and quarantine requirements were implemented by some countries later in this 3-week period, these enhanced screening policies were rarely the first response. The timing and conditionality of quarantine and testing requirements were not coordinated between countries or regions, creating logistical complications and burdening travellers with costs. Overall, response measures were rarely tied to specific criteria or adapted to match the unique epidemiology of the new variant.

Law, criminalisation and HIV in the world: have countries that criminalise achieved more or less successful pandemic response?

How do choices in criminal law and rights protections affect disease-fighting efforts? This long-standing question facing governments around the world is acute in the context of pandemics like HIV and COVID-19. The Global AIDS Strategy of the last 5 years sought to prevent mortality and HIV transmission in part through ensuring people living with HIV (PLHIV) knew their HIV status and could suppress the HIV virus through antiretroviral treatment. This article presents a cross-national ecological analysis of the relative success of national AIDS responses under this strategy, where laws were characterised by more or less criminalisation and with varying rights protections. In countries where same-sex sexual acts were criminalised, the portion of PLHIV who knew their HIV status was 11% lower and viral suppression levels 8% lower. Sex work criminalisation was associated with 10% lower knowledge of status and 6% lower viral suppression. Drug use criminalisation was associated with 14% lower levels of both. Criminalising all three of these areas was associated with approximately 18%-24% worse outcomes. Meanwhile, national laws on non-discrimination, independent human rights institutions and gender-based violence were associated with significantly higher knowledge of HIV status and higher viral suppression among PLHIV. Since most countries did not achieve 2020 HIV goals, this ecological evidence suggests that law reform may be an important tool in speeding momentum to halt the pandemic.