# Why travel restrictions won't stop ebola **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 16, 2014, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-travel-restrictions-wont-stop-ebola/701569 "2014-10-16T19:48:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-travel-restrictions-wont-stop-ebola/701569/41 "2014-10-18T04:07:36Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > Googling produces many links including [this article](http://www.newsmax.com/TheWire/ebola-travel-ban/2014/10/16/id/601025/) listing a bunch of countries that have enacted bans or restrictions, among them: > Gambia
 > Nigeria
 > Togo
 > Gabon
 > Ivory Coast
 > Senegal
 > Rwanda
 > Chad
 > South Sudan
 > Namibia
 > Angola
 > Botswana
 > South Africa
 > Congo (DRC)
 > Lesotho
 > Equatorial Guinea
 > Kenya
 > Madagascar
 > Malawi
 > Mauritius
 > Mozambique
 > Swaziland
 > Tanzania
 > Zambia 
 > Zimbabwe
 > Cameroon
 > Gabon
 > Morocco The article is full of errors. Perhaps lies. The Morocco has no travel ban on the Liberians. It draws on this and gets many things wrong. > **[Login](https://pandemic.internationalsos.com/login?returnUrl=%2Fdiseases%2Febola)** ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-travel-restrictions-wont-stop-ebola/701569/42 "2014-10-18T04:28:57Z")
I have merged two similar threads on travel restrictions due to Ebola. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-travel-restrictions-wont-stop-ebola/701569/43 "2014-10-18T05:05:33Z")
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/10/17/cruise-ship-carrying-texas-ebola-nurse-refused-entry-in-belize/?tid=trending\_strip\_6](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/10/17/cruise-ship-carrying-texas-ebola-nurse-refused-entry-in-belize/?tid=trending_strip_6) > [@](#): > > Mexico fails to grant access to cruise ship carrying Texas health worker > > The cruise ship carrying a Texas health-care worker who “may have” handled lab specimens from Dallas Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan is headed back to the United States after Mexican authorities failed to grant permission for the ship to dock off the coast of Cozumel, according to a Carnival spokeswoman. > > The Carnival Magic had been waiting off the Mexican coast since Friday morning for its scheduled port visit. Mexican authorities still hadn’t given clearance by noon, so the ship continued to its home port of Galveston, Tex., where it was due back on Sunday, according to Carnival. > > The health worker, a lab supervisor who has not been named, has shown no symptoms of the disease but remains on board and in voluntary isolation, according to Carnival. “We greatly regret that this situation, which was completely beyond our control, precluded the ship from making its scheduled visit to Cozumel and the resulting disappointment it has caused our guests,” read a statement from Carnival. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-travel-restrictions-wont-stop-ebola/701569/44 "2014-10-18T07:27:53Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > Here’s my question - why isn’t western Europe in a panic about ebola the same way we seem to be here in the US? Has any country there been considering a travel ban for people flying-in from western Africa? Because we’re not blithering idiots? It is because our media are not the fear factory they are in the US. And we’re not collectively gearing up for a midterm-election and every politician has to say something about this. Ebola is a very nasty disease, but malaria/flu/the common cold is still a bigger killer. Worry about the driver behind you. Travel restrictions wil not make 1 (one) American safer while condemning the affected region. ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-travel-restrictions-wont-stop-ebola/701569/45 "2014-10-18T13:49:12Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I have been to dozens of countries that don’t exit stamp. The Caymans, most recently. Really! :eek: They stamp mine. Again, and again, and again. You have to clear immigration upon exit at the airport. Stamping on entry or exit not required for cruise ship passengers, which comprise the overwhelming majority of our visitors. But overall, agreed that often the stamps aren’t easily legible. Tracking point of origin if travel is not booked as one ticket could proven to be too cumbersome. And since passport stamps are not organized in any particular way, it could take a long time to sort the recent stamps from those long ago. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-travel-restrictions-wont-stop-ebola/701569/46 "2014-10-18T14:13:58Z")
Funny how you criticize us Ugly Americans and then wrap it up with an overreach like this … > [@The\_Librarian](#): > > Travel restrictions wil not make 1 (one) American safer while condemning the affected region. Any travel restriction would in fact make some people safer…though not worth the effort relative to travel restriction done properly. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-travel-restrictions-wont-stop-ebola/701569/47 "2014-10-18T14:24:15Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > True. And since everyone entry-stamps it was more of a nitpick than a practical consideration. Not always. Even the U.S. doesn’t always entry-stamp, especially at land border crossings. Some countries don’t entry-stamp their own nationals. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-travel-restrictions-wont-stop-ebola/701569/48 "2014-10-18T15:33:24Z")
> [@Eva\_Luna](#): > > Not always. Even the U.S. doesn’t always entry-stamp, especially at land border crossings. Some countries don’t entry-stamp their own nationals. There are many cases of countries that do not border-stamp with friendly adjacent countries. But that is not the case in Africa. It is certainly not the case with respect to people flying from one continent to another. It would be exceedingly difficult for a person anywhere in Africa to enter a country on another continent without carrying a passport that would reveal the traveler’s having been through immigration checkpoints in Africa. It would be possible for a person to sneak across the border from, say, Guinea into Mali, but any motorable road or public bus would subject one to a diligent passport inspection. African countries are very aware of people illegally crossing borders, and all of them are as fussy about it as Americans are about incoming Mexicans. Furthermore. even if you could sneak from Guinea into Mali, and then fly from there through Paris to New York, that Mali stamp in your passport from a week ago would certainly be plainly visible to anyone inspecting your documents upon arrival. How hard would it be to circulate a memo to immigration officers to watch for that? Incidentally, putting ebola into perspective, the number of deaths in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea so far is 5,000, out of a population of over 20-million, which is one out of 4,000. In the USA, the average nunber of deaths in any flu season in the 1990s was 36,000 per year, which is one out of 8,000 every year, or one out of 800 for the decade. Yet, flu vaccine is available in the USA and more than half the population doesn’t even bother to get it. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-travel-restrictions-wont-stop-ebola/701569/49 "2014-10-18T15:48:38Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > Everybody has a passport. In the pages of the passport is a record of every country they entered or left, and the date. If somebody shows up at the border, you page through their passport and see what countries they’ve been in in the recent weeks or months or years. Sometimes. Travelling in Europe (before the EU), a couple of times they didn’t bother stamping my passport when we crossed borders. It was like, ‘Oh, U.S. passport. You’re OK.’ The Israeli guy sitting on the train with us got more scrutiny and stamps. I’ve never had my passport stamped going in and out of Canada, except one time I _asked_ them to. . ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-travel-restrictions-wont-stop-ebola/701569/50 "2014-10-18T15:52:14Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > It would be possible for a person to sneak across the border from, say, Guinea into Mali, but any motorable road or public bus would subject one to a diligent passport inspection. African countries are very aware of people illegally crossing borders, and all of them are as fussy about it as Americans are about incoming Mexicans. I’ve seen plenty of Mexicans who weren’t stamped at land crossings into the U.S. It’s actually a huge pain in the neck when trying to prove that someone did, in fact, enter the U.S. legally (especially when entering with a border crossing card). Yes, even recently. > [@](#): > > Furthermore. even if you could sneak from Guinea into Mali, and then fly from there through Paris to New York, that Mali stamp in your passport from a week ago would certainly be plainly visible to anyone inspecting your documents upon arrival. How hard would it be to circulate a memo to immigration officers to watch for that? I admit I have never crossed from one country to another in Africa and don’t know jack about the mechanics of that. But as far as the U.S., I have quite a bit of professional (and some personal) experience with immigration procedures. You can circulate all kinds of memos, but that doesn’t mean the border inspectors will read them or implement them properly. At work we routinely have problems with immigration officials not understanding or knowing about policies that have been in place for a decade or more. > [@](#): > > Incidentally, putting ebola into perspective, the number of deaths in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea so far is 5,000, out of a population of over 20-million, which is one out of 4,000. In the USA, the average nunber of deaths in any flu season in the 1990s was 36,000 per year, which is one out of 8,000 every year, or one out of 800 for the decade. Yet, flu vaccine is available in the USA and more than half the population doesn’t even bother to get it. Flu doesn’t have nearly the mortality rate of ebola, even among those sectors of the population most susceptible to flu complications. And flu is much more easily treated. Eva Luna, Immigration Paralegal ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-travel-restrictions-wont-stop-ebola/701569/51 "2014-10-18T16:10:35Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > Here’s my question - why isn’t western Europe in a panic about ebola the same way we seem to be here in the US? Has any country there been considering a travel ban for people flying-in from western Africa? Europe doesn’t have a general election in three weeks? ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-travel-restrictions-wont-stop-ebola/701569/52 "2014-10-18T17:09:56Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > Why don’t we ban the flights and then pressure Europe to do the same? Because it would cause far, far, far more harm than good, because … > [@even\_sven](#): > > Flight bans will destroy the aid effort, which will only lead to a bigger problem in the end. > > They also encourage people to dodge regulations, which will hurt efforts to trace contacts. The only effective way to fight this threat is to defeat it at the source. If we do not do that, then it continues to expand exponentially. As it does, other countries will get infected, and we’d have to ban travel to yet more countries. Eventually, we’d have to ban all travel. Meanwhile, plenty of people would sneak past the ban, and we’d have a far bigger problem here in the US than if we’d simply expended every effort to treat the real problem: the outbreak in Africa. > [@What\_the](#): > > Any travel restriction would in fact make some people safer…though not worth the effort relative to travel restriction done properly. It would make specific people (who we’d have a hard time determining) while dramatically increasing the risk for everyone. A travel ban would be about as effective as burying our heads in the sand. It would be an apparent short-term fix, with disastrous consequences. Let’s focus on fixing the problem, not merely trying to protect our own asses and failing to do that. Of course, as a recent post on Facebook said, all the Ebola cases in the US have been people trying to help other people, so Republicans should be at little risk. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-travel-restrictions-wont-stop-ebola/701569/53 "2014-10-18T17:28:57Z")
I heard a new joke about Ebola. You probably won’t get it. _rimshot_😛 ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-travel-restrictions-wont-stop-ebola/701569/54 "2014-10-18T17:34:03Z")
Does anybody understand the meaning of the word “quaantine”? It means to isolate a person with a communicable disease, so as to reduce the risk of spreading it through the general population. Once you decide that a quarantine is appropriate, you simply do whatever is appropriate in order to make the quarantine effective. If it works, potentially, to prevent people from an infected population from mingling with an unaffective population, well, that’s what you do. When I was in Mopti, Mali, the city was quarantined overnight for cholera. Nobody was allowed to pass through military checkpoints on all roads in and out of the city, all flights were canceled in and out of the airport, and riverboats were denied landing access. I don’t know when the quarantine was lifted, but after three days, people who had valid cholera vaccination certificates were allowed to walk out through the checkpoints. That’s how quarantines work. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-travel-restrictions-wont-stop-ebola/701569/55 "2014-10-18T17:56:56Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > Does anybody understand the meaning of the word “quaantine”? We understand how quarantines work. Do you understand how porous borders, lax enforcement, and forged documents work? ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-travel-restrictions-wont-stop-ebola/701569/56 "2014-10-18T18:44:45Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > Does anybody understand the meaning of the word “quaantine”? It means to isolate a person with a communicable disease, so as to reduce the risk of spreading it through the general population. Once you decide that a quarantine is appropriate, you simply do whatever is appropriate in order to make the quarantine effective. If it works, potentially, to prevent people from an infected population from mingling with an unaffective population, well, that’s what you do. > > When I was in Mopti, Mali, the city was quarantined overnight for cholera. Nobody was allowed to pass through military checkpoints on all roads in and out of the city, all flights were canceled in and out of the airport, and riverboats were denied landing access. I don’t know when the quarantine was lifted, but after three days, people who had valid cholera vaccination certificates were allowed to walk out through the checkpoints. > > That’s how quarantines work. That works well in other countries not the US where people fear the army and propaganda Americans cannot be authority state. And Africa works with bribery and corruption.Will not work in Africa where there is bribery and corruption with the police ,government and people. Only way is for the US army to go to Africa and quarantine people and patrol the airport and borders. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-travel-restrictions-wont-stop-ebola/701569/57 "2014-10-18T19:21:17Z")
How hard do you think it’d be for a foreigner to have left Mopti during the quarantine? ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-travel-restrictions-wont-stop-ebola/701569/58 "2014-10-18T20:08:44Z")
> [@sweat209](#): > > That works well in other countries not the US where people fear the army and propaganda Americans cannot be authority state. > > And Africa works with bribery and corruption.Will not work in Africa where there is bribery and corruption with the police ,government and people. > > Only way is for the US army to go to Africa and quarantine people and patrol the airport and borders. Morality and legality aside, if you think the US has the capacity effectively to seal the land and sea borders of an area of 420,000 square kilometres with a population of 20,000,000, you are deluded. They can’t even secure their own border with Mexico. ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-travel-restrictions-wont-stop-ebola/701569/59 "2014-10-18T20:36:48Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Morality and legality aside, if you think the US has the capacity effectively to seal the land and sea borders of an area of 420,000 square kilometres with a population of 20,000,000, you are deluded. They can’t even secure their own border with Mexico. If the US army cannot seal the land and sea borders of unarmed people the US is doom in war if China sends million navy seals to do target attacks of key infrastructure of power station ,shipping ports ,power lines ,gas stations ,gas lines ,airports ,bridges so on in a million crude semi stealth boats.And once in the US cities in small groups no more 20 fighting city war far of groups would be very hard. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-travel-restrictions-wont-stop-ebola/701569/60 "2014-10-18T20:41:38Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > It would be like someone saying that California is part of the American South. Yes, it is south of Oregon and Washington. But it isn’t part of “The South”. It’s in a whole different part of the country altogether, which isn’t “The South”. > > “West Africa” is a lot farther west than Angola. Angola is in Southern Africa, not West Africa. Yes, it happens to be in the western part of Southern Africa, just like California is in the southern part of Western America but is not in the western part of Southern America–that would be Texas. Or East Texas. East Texas is Southern, West Texas isn’t. This had already been explained, and I wasn’t disagreeing. I signaled this agreement by saying “Well, OK then” in the post previous to yours, I case that wasn’t clear. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-travel-restrictions-wont-stop-ebola/701569.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-travel-restrictions-wont-stop-ebola/701569.md?page=4)