COVID-19 impacts on mobility

COVID-19 has been the most severe pandemic in a century, with its combination of high transmission, virus strains and the severity of the disease forcing policymakers into previously uncharted territory. While the main focus was on responding to the global health crisis (e.g. virus testing, disease treatment, and vaccination development and programming), part of the response has involved drastic changes to freedom of movement of people all around the world, which in turn has massively impacted human mobility globally. COVID-19-related immobility became the “great disrupter” of migration.²⁰

Governments around the world implemented various measures to limit the spread of the virus and a range of restrictions was introduced from early 2020, evolving over time. New data sets emerged to track policy responses globally, such as the University of Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker,²¹ which has recorded a wide range of government responses globally, such as “stay-at-home” measures, workplace closures, school closures, restrictions on gatherings, restrictions on internal movements within a country, and international travel control measures. In addition, IOM began tracking travel restrictions globally early in the pandemic, drawing upon a range of data and reporting results via its COVID-19 Mobility Impacts dashboard.²²

Overall, COVID-19 travel restriction measures – both internal and international – were quickly put in place by the vast majority of countries around the world, with the peak occurring in late March to early April 2020 (see Figure 8). While international travel restrictions were more likely to have been enacted early in the pandemic, there was a greater variety of control measures during the initial weeks (including screening early on), probably due to governments needing to assess the severity of the crisis during a period of extraordinary uncertainty. As the severity of COVID-19 became clear, the number of both international and internal travel restrictions rose drastically.

Source: Hale et al., 2023.

Notes: As at 1 January 2023. The term “‘international travel controls” is used by Oxford and includes screening arrivals, quarantining arrivals, banning arrivals or total border closure. It is also important to note that categories are COVID-19-related only and do not reflect other travel restrictions that may have already been in place, such as those related to visa restrictions, entry bans based on specific citizens, and departure/ exit restrictions.

The impact of the COVID-19-related travel restrictions becomes very clear when air passenger data are examined. We can see from long-term air passenger figures that COVID-19 travel restrictions had a major impact on both international and domestic air travel in 2020. Total air passengers carried dropped by 60 per cent from around 4.5 billion in 2019 to 1.8 billion in 2020 (Figure 9). Air passenger numbers began to inch up in 2021 as countries relaxed mobility restrictions, and by end of 2022, total passenger figures had risen to more than 3.5 billion.
 

Source: ICAO, 2023

See additional data, research and analysis in the thematic Chapter 9 in this report, which provides an update on COVID-19 impacts on migration and mobility globally.