Working paper

Reducing mobility of SARS-CoV-2 variants to safeguard containment

Stopping a new variant from entering from abroad, would facilitate containment and limit the human, social and economic costs.

Publishing date
04 May 2021

When the coronavirus pandemic started in 2019/2020, a number of countries reacted early, closing down public life and reducing private contacts before contagion fully took off. Countries that failed to do this saw large spikes in cases, stretching or overwhelming their medical capacities. Likewise, countries that ignored warning signals of a second wave were hit hard in autumn 2020. A third wave, caused by the more contagious B.1.1.7 SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus variant, has unfolded. This variant was first recognised in Kent, United Kingdom, from where it spread quickly across the UK and beyond. It spread to countries with more travel to the UK earlier than others. Germany was affected relatively late while Portugal and Ireland were affected early because of more intensive travel links. Another variant, P1, is also spreading rapidly in Brazil and countries with strong travel connections to Brazil, such as Chile.

People travelling play a central role in spreading new variants of SARS-CoV-2, with devastating consequences. Stopping a new variant from entering from abroad, or at least slowing it down, would facilitate containment and limit the human, social and economic costs. The experience with B.1.1.7 shows how slower entry of a variant to a country delays the deterioration of the health situation and the introduction of strict and costly lockdowns.

Public policy in advanced economies is focusing on vaccination in the hope this will bring down the number of severe cases and deaths while allowing restrictions to be lifted (Dagan et al, 2021). By the end of 2021, large parts of the populations of Israel, Chile, the US, the UK and the EU will have received the vaccine and will be largely immune to the wild strain and some variants of COVID-19.

Recommended citation:

Hellwig, M., V. Priesemann and G.B. Wolff (2021) ‘Reducing the mobility of SARS-CoV-2 variants to safeguard containment’, Working Paper 07/2021, Bruegel

About the authors

  • Guntram B. Wolff

    Guntram Wolff is a Senior fellow at Bruegel. He is also a Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy. From 2022-2024, he was the Director and CEO of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) and from 2013-22 the director of Bruegel. Over his career, he has contributed to research on European political economy, climate policy, geoeconomics, macroeconomics and foreign affairs. His work was published in academic journals such as Nature, Science, Research Policy, Energy Policy, Climate Policy, Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of Banking and Finance. His co-authored book “The macroeconomics of decarbonization” is published in Cambridge University Press.

    An experienced public adviser, he has been testifying twice a year since 2013 to the informal European finance ministers’ and central bank governors’ ECOFIN Council meeting on a large variety of topics. He also regularly testifies to the European Parliament, the Bundestag and speaks to corporate boards. In 2020, Business Insider ranked him one of the 28 most influential “power players” in Europe. From 2012-16, he was a member of the French prime minister’s Conseil d’Analyse Economique. In 2018, then IMF managing director Christine Lagarde appointed him to the external advisory group on surveillance to review the Fund’s priorities. In 2021, he was appointed member and co-director to the G20 High level independent panel on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response under the co-chairs Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Lawrence H. Summers and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. From 2013-22, he was an advisor to the Mastercard Centre for Inclusive Growth. He is a member of the Bulgarian Council of Economic Analysis, the European Council on Foreign Affairs and  advisory board of Elcano.

    Guntram joined Bruegel from the European Commission, where he worked on the macroeconomics of the euro area and the reform of euro area governance. Prior to joining the Commission, he worked in the research department at the Bundesbank, which he joined after completing his PhD in economics at the University of Bonn. He also worked as an external adviser to the International Monetary Fund. He is fluent in German, English, and French. His work is regularly published and cited in leading media. 

  • Martin Hellwig

    Martin Hellwig is Director emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods and a Professor of Economics at the University of Bonn, Germany. He holds a doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has held university positions at Stanford, Princeton, Bonn, Basel, Harvard, and Mannheim. His research interests involve the economics of information and incentives, public goods and taxation, financial institutions and financial stability, network industries and competition policy. He is a fellow of the Econometric Society and the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory, a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Economic Association and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Past President of the European Economic Association and the Verein für Socialpolitik (German Economic Association) and the Co-Winner of the 2012 Max Planck Research Award for his work on International Financial Regulation. He is also a Member of the Academic Advisory Committee of the German Ministry of the Economy and Technology, a Past Chairman of the German Monopolies Commission and of the German Government’s Advisory Committee of Wirtschaftsfonds Deutschland. In 2011/12 he also was the first Chair of the Advisory Scientific Committee of the European Systemic Risk Board. He is a co-author, with Anat Admati from Stanford University, of the book "The Bankers' New Clothes: What's Wrong with Banking and What to Do about It", Princeton University Press 2013.

  • Viola Priesemann

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