大変楽なことに、この「It is much easier to apologize...」の名言については、既に遡って調べているサイト*1があり、リンクを紹介するだけでもよいかなあと思ったのですが、日本ではほとんど話題になっていないので、とりあえず情報を残す意味でも記事にします。要約するなら、「意味を与えたのはホッパーかもしれないが、初めて言ったのはホッパーではない」です。
In general, evidence shows that restricting the movement of people and goods during public health emergencies is ineffective in most situations and may divert resources from other interventions.
そして、質問の中身を見ていただければわかる通り、質問者は今回の渡航制限を既に「政治的」問題として捉えていることが、「against each other」や「escalating against each other」などの表現からわかります。少々意地悪な見方をするなら、そもそもWHOが渡航制限に対して否定的な立場をとっているのは明らかなのですから、このような質問をすれば、返ってくる答えは「それは適当ではない」というものであり、「もっとお互い仲良くやろう」になるだろうということは想像に難くないはずです。ということは、いささかこの質問は誘導尋問的であり、メディアの編集点として利用された回答である、という見方もできます。
実際、テドロス事務局長は、同じ質問の中で、
the only way we can beat this virus is when we stand together. And that has been the message from WHO all along and it is, and it will be. So call on all countries to stand in unison.
We’ve been pretty clear on the issue of travel restrictions for a very long time. They should be carefully considered they should be public health evidence driven they should be of short duration. And they should never be carried out in the absence of comprehensive set of measures to contain or control the desease. And there is a long history unfortunately of countries sometimes with tit-for-tat travel restrictions that has happened in the past. Since the advent of the IHR in fact we’ve seen a huge improvement in that and in transparency between countries. Because we challenged countries who put in place travel restrictions and we challenged them to provide the public health of evidence. I think again I think Japan and Korea are both doing a fine job, in the face of this epidemic they’ve both scaled up their public health operations. They’re saving lives. And I think we should focus on that and not necessarily on political spats over travel restrictions, it’s very very important people understand that. These types of restrictions are not helping and in that sense to overemphasize them is to hurt the responsible. We do commend both governments from making significant progress in fighting this desease.
WHO recognizes individual country considerations will affect national decisions, but, in general, does not encourage:
...
the restriction of travel within national borders during a pandemic, with the exception of a globally led rapid response and containment operation, or in rare instances where clear geographical and other barriers exist;
I’d like to ask about from Japan and Korea, it’s travel new restrictions. Both nations have been implementing travel we’re policy against the each other. In Japan, part of Korean measures are taking to the telling for. So can you tell us about what extended these travel restrictions are meeting for and do you have any concerns and countries are escalating against each other.