Feature photo: border crossing to Austria | © Reinhard Thrainer on Pixabay
As soon as a failed politician doesn't know what to do anymore, border controls come into play - the fence in of one's own clientele as a panacea, as recently à la DDR. On the one hand it should feign professional competence, initiative and care and on the other hand it should use ancient reflexes: the others are to blame.
People and certainly not viruses can be prevented from spreading across the entire world through isolation and exclusion. Especially in those times when people could hardly move from their own village or town, the plague raged everywhere.
And at the end of World War I, with nations all concentrated in their own territories, the Spanish flu raged.
Even today, neither viruses nor people can be prevented from spreading. That is why it is pointless to keep initiating new border controls or even closures.
It would be better to accept that border controls and closures only waste scarce resources and finally start to give more consideration to other possible solutions.
In addition to more intensive clarification of underage sections of the population, including timely and direct sanctions for corresponding misconduct, the existing monitoring could also be expanded and professionalized. Ultimately, you also have to think about distributing sick people and medical staff across borders in order to be able to counter the main points of spread better and faster.
In no pandemic have people, no matter how privileged, been able to isolate themselves and wait for a pandemic to end. If you still want to try it yourself, I recommend reading it Edgar Allan Poes"The Masque of the Red Death' from 1842 to take with you into your self-isolation; and also Giovanni Boccaccio already in the middle of the 14th century in his work "decameron' appropriate conclusions were drawn.
"People are more inclined to believe in bad intentions than in good ones."
Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron (c. 1350, 3rd day, 6th story)
