What is travel bubble and is it a way forward to deal with COVID-19?
Will Travel bubble restart the travelling between two countries amid the global pandemic
After social bubble, a new term travel bubble is doing rounds recently. The Baltic countries of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia on Friday started travel bubble to help their economy stand again. The global pandemic has put a stop on domestic and international travel across many countries in the world. Travel bubble is touted as the way forward to keep at least parts of the global economy running. All the three European countries who have started it have so far managed to keep the pandemic in control. A combined COVID-19 death in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia is around 150 till May 18.
What is Travel bubble?
Reconnecting states or countries that have shown a good level of success in containing the novel coronavirus pandemic domestically is termed as travel bubble. The travel bubble will allow the members of that group to rekindle trade ties with each other and restart sectors such as tourism and travel.
As per a report published by The Economist, potential travel bubbles among better performing countries across the world will account for about 35 per cent of the total GDP of the world. These arrangements are getting favoured by smaller countries, who are likely to benefit more than larger countries after being able to trade again with larger countries.
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More about Travel Bubble
The travel bubble of Lithuania-Estonia-Latvia will allow the residents of all three countries to travel freely by air, rail, and sea without quarantine measures. All the three countries have very less population- Latvia has 19.2 lakh people, Lithuania has 28 lakh population and Estonia has 13.3 lakh population. All the three countries have been able to control the global pandemic better than many other countries.
People coming from other countries in this bubble will have to be in 14 days quarantine to freely travel in the zone. If one is a citizen of these countries and wants to travel then he/she should have not gone to any foreign country in last few days, he/she should not be infected with the coronavirus or should not have not come in contact with someone who has coronavirus.
Will other countries adopt this model too?
New Zealand and Australia reached an agreement on May 5 to form a travel bubble, once it is safe to operate flights between both the countries. Both countries have almost suppressed pandemic domestically. Once, the air services are allowed, travellers will be able to travel without a mandatory quarantine period.
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South Korea and China has almost defeated the coronavirus in their countries. They have launched a fast track medium for the business traveller.
Travel bubbles are suggested to group states that are faring well In the United States but constitutional challenges are being cited as the roadblock for this plan.
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