Restrictions on mobility due to the coronavirus Covid19: Threats and opportunities for transport and health

Almost one year ago, in this editorial we discussed the outbreak of the SARS COV 2 virus that causes Covid19 and its relationship with transport (Musselwhite et al., 2020). We highlighted how our hypermobile society, especially international transport contributed to its spread from person to person quickly across the globe, and then how national transport networks spread it into the heart of communities. The response from the government in many countries, among other measures such as social distancing, hand washing and the wearing of masks, was to place restrictions on movement, reducing all those but essential workers (for example, healthcare, social care, police, fire, postal and delivery workers, food production and food shops) to working at home or in some places being placed on furlough (being paid for their work, but not actually working) as their work could not be carried out. The more successful countries who have so far managed to get virus numbers down and keep transmission down to very low numbers, such as Vietnam, Taiwan, Thailand, China and New Zealand, implemented a set of very strict reductions on mobility including tight controls on entry and exit from the country at the early stage of the pandemic. Gargoum and Garguom (2021) state countries that locked down early were able to keep mobility at around 40% levels throughout the pandemic, whereas those that locked down too late had to restrict mobility further.