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Should our team travel to our planned training camp or sporting event?

Once travel restrictions have been removed the decision for a sporting team to travel internationally should be made on a case by case basis carefully balancing the benefits, risks and risk mitigation options. A framework to help National Sporting Organisations and teams work through their options should include at least the following:

Benefits

  • Why is the team travelling?
  • What is the specific aim of the training camp or competition?
  • Is the travel optional, important or necessary to achieve the overall objectives?
  • Are there any suitable lower risk locations or events available that can provide the same or similar benefit?
  • What is lost by not travelling to the intended ’elevated-risk’ location?

Risks

  • How many people are in the travelling party and how long will the team be together?
  • What are the current known risks and travel recommendations for the location you are going to?
  • What are the current known risks and travel recommendations for adjacent locations in the region you are going to?
  • What has been the recent rate of change for these locations?
  • What are the key destinations and events for your team in the foreseeable future? Would the presence in an ‘elevated-risk’ location make travel to other locations more difficult, secondary to mandatory quarantine periods?
  • Are there likely to be updates to the current travel recommendations? Formal recommendations from government departments will lag hours to days as they rely on indicator-based surveillance systems such as the WHO daily situation reports. One approach to monitoring this lag period include event-based surveillance tools such as MEDISYS, opens in a new tab used by the European CDC.
  • How well is the destination medical system coping?
  • Will you have a doctor travelling with your team?
  • Are the financial resources available to pay for emergency flights back to Australia if required, noting that such flights are likely to be at first and business class rates.
  • What impact will a 14 day supervised hotel quarantine have on the physical preparation for the next event?

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