Border Closures and Health Security, Urbanization and Future Health Systems
February 7, 2025
Editors' Note
Upon returning to office, President Donald Trump has signed a litany of executive orders. Among them is closing the U.S. southern border, citing security risks associated with the screening of "communicable diseases of public-health concern."
To weigh in on the effectiveness of border closures as a public health tool, CFR Senior Fellow and author of When the World Closed Its Doors Edward Alden discusses the travel bans implemented early in the COVID-19 pandemic. He notes that despite their global adoption, the measures led to human rights violations and did not protect Americans from the coronavirus.
This week's edition then pivots to a miniseries on infrastructure, city diplomacy, and health, guest-edited by Evelyne de Leeuw, the Canada excellence in research chair for one urban health at the Université de Montréal. The first installment by de Leeuw and Patrick Harris, senior research fellow at the University of New South Wales's International Center for Future Health Systems, urges cities to network on a subnational level to manage the health threats created by economic globalization, ecological disruptions, and climate change.
A second piece by Michele Acuto, vice president for global engagement and professor of urban resilience at the University of Bristol, argues that international cities can cooperate on health problems that states have not addressed adequately through diplomacy.
De Leeuw returns for the final installment, co-authoring a piece with Simon Rüegg and Marc Yambayamba from the University of Zürich about how societies can draw on earth's thermodynamics to build regenerative infrastructure.
We depart by announcing Think Global Health's newsletter archive, which features every edition sent since 2020.
Until next week!—Nsikan Akpan, Managing Editor, and Caroline Kantis, Associate Editor
According to the USDA, a second version of H5N1 bird flu, known as D1.1, has been detected in dairy cattle for the first time. D1.1 was responsible for last month's fatal case in Louisiana. This new spillover event signals that the virus's ongoing spread will be difficult to contain.
