COVID-19 Points of Entry Analysis – 26 June – SEEECA

The current outbreak of COVID-19 has affected global mobility in the form of various travel disruptions and restrictions.  To better understand how COVID-19 affects global mobility, IOM has developed a global mobility database to map and gather data  on the locations, status and different restrictions at PoEs, globally. This report looks at data for countries in the South-Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia (SEEECA) region. It also looks at the impacts on stranded  migrants and other populations such as tourists who are affected by the changes in mobility measures using a compilation of inputs from multiple sources,  including from IOM staff in the field, DTM reports on flow monitoring and mobility tracking as well as from trusted media sources. In addition, it looks at the availability of public health measures at the assessed locations, including tools/measures in the event of a COVID-19 case on site. Maintaining and enhancing these capacities across various levels (e.g. local, national, regional) can facilitate the detection, assessment, and notification or reporting of events that can together contribute to prompt and effective responses to public health emergencies such as COVID-19.

IOM has assessed 4,930 locations in total (including PoEs, internal transit points, areas of interest and sites with population of interest) in 176 countries, territories and areas as of June 2020. At the same time, in the SEEECA region, 851 locations in 19 countries, territories and areas (C/T/As) were assessed. It is noteworthy to mention that additional 49 locations were assessed since the last round of reporting (28 May 2020) within the scope of this report. Of these, 50 per cent were land border crossing points, 14 per cent airports, 9 per cent of assessed points were blue border crossing points (sea, river and lake ports), 6 per cent were areas of interest and 8 per cent sites with population of interest. Finally, 13 per cent of the locations assessed were internal transit points between cities and regions.

Of all assessed PoEs and internal transit points in the SEEECA region, 36 per cent were reported as fully closed, 21 per cent were reported to be partially operational, and 41 per cent fully operational (open). At the same time, only 3 per cent of the assessed location status was classified as other.