A study has found that air travel was the main driver behind the spread of coronavirus.
The study, conducted by researchers from the Federal University of Bahia in Salvador, Brazil, found that climate and socioeconomic factors played minor roles, according to an article by Daily Mail.
The researchers said that screening and isolating travellers is an effective way to contain the virus, and countries which banned international travel fared better.
It may explain why the US and UK, countries having the first and third highest air travel globally, have also suffered the most from the pandemic, with 81,795 and 32,065 deaths respectively.
Writing in the study, the academics said: “We tested the effect of three classes of predictors... socioeconomic, climatic, and transport, on the rate of daily increase of Covid-19”
“We found that global connections, represented by countries’ importance in the global air transportation network, is the main explanation for the growth rate of Covid-19 in different countries."
“Climate, geographic distance and socioeconomics had a milder effect in this big picture analysis,” said the researchers.
“Our results indicate that the current claims that the growth rate of Covid-19 may be lower in warmer and humid tropical countries should be taken very carefully,” they added.
Their findings come following an analysis by MailOnline that suggested countries which banned international travel fared better in controlling their outbreaks.
Dr Joshua Moon, a research fellow in science policy at the University of Sussex, told MailOnline: “Those two minutes you spend getting temperatures and histories are not going to tell you much about whether a person has the disease or not.”
“'Basically, travel and trade often do more harm than good and the key difference between us and other island nations is the actual government response.”
The coronavirus pandemic has so far infected 4,225,942 people and killed 287,332 people globally.
