Effectiveness of airport screening at detecting travellers infected with 2019-nCoV

Billy Quilty; Sam Clifford; Stefan Flasche; Rosalind M Eggo

We simulated 100 infected air travellers who are still infected with 2019-nCoV on arrival at their destination and hence would pose a risk for seeding transmission in a new region. The duration of travel is the flight time plus a small amount of additional travel time for airport procedures. We assumed that most individuals will develop symptoms, including fever, at the end of their incubation period and progress to more severe symptoms after a few days, resulting in hospitalisation and isolation. Individuals may also exhibit an asymptomatic (subclinical) infection where they do not exhibit symptoms that would be detected by thermal scanning or cause them to seek medical care, although these individuals may be infectious. Travellers may exhibit severe symptoms during their travel; upon arrival they are hospitalised without undergoing entry screening. We then estimated the proportion of travellers who would be detected by exit and entry screening, develop severe symptoms during travel, or go undetected, under varying assumptions of: