“People just assumed at the time that these measures were effective, but that’s not necessarily the case,” the paper’s lead author, Mathieu Poirier, said in a media release. Poirier is a social epidemiology professor at York and co-director of the Global Strategy Lab.
“Our study shows, using real-world data, that for most countries, in most situations, border closures are not going to be the best approach," he said.