Points of Entry Analysis: January 27, 2021 – IOM Regional Office for the European Economic Area, the European Union and NATO
The outbreak of the COVID-19 virus has affected global and regional human mobility in the form of various travel disruptions and restrictions.
The total number of COVID-19 cases reached 22,765,857 in the European Economic Area region (EEA) as of 31 January 2021 according to the World Health Organization (WHO). To better understand how the pandemic affects mobility at the Points of Entry (PoEs), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has developed an online tool and database which tracks changes in mobility at Points of Entry (airports, land and blue border crossing points). This includes preparedness and response measures to prevent, protect against, control and assist in line with the International Health Regulations (IHR). Among the mobility changes tracked by IOM are: 1) Movement restrictions on entry and/or exit, 2)
Changes in visa requirements, 3) Restrictions applied to certain nationalities to disembark at this location, 4) Changes in identification documents needed to disembark, 5) Medical measures in place such as Health Staffing/Medical Personnel, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE), Infection prevention and control (IPC) and Surveillance and Referral.
As of 27 January 2021, data was collected on 809 PoEs in 30 countries/territories/areas across the EEA region. These locations include: 480 land border crossings points, 190 airports, and 139 blue border crossing points (including sea, river and lake ports). This work is based on the information collected by or available to IOM Country Offices in the region. This PoEs brief analysis provides an overview of the changes of the operational status and mobility restrictions over the past year, between April 2020 and January 2021. Not all data on PoEs have been updated every month, meaning that the displayed trend does not necessarily represent the situation of all PoEs at any given month. A total of 809 PoEs have been assessed as of January 2021, which is 45 more than the 764 PoEs assessed in April last year when the global data collection exercise was rolled out
