US President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced the suspension of all travel from Europe to the United States for 30 days starting Friday, further shuttering up the country against coronavirus, which he called a “foreign virus”, as a leading expert warned lawmakers the situation “will get worse”.
The restrictions, in addition to travel bans on China (the origin and epicentre of the outbreak), South Korea and Iran, will be extremely disruptive for the US and the world. Cargoes were also covered by the restrictions, Trump had said in his speech before reversing himself with a tweet just minutes after.
The ban won’t apply to Americans trying to return home – though they will be subject to “enhanced” health screening – or to citizens of the United Kingdom.
Indians headed for the United States over the next month would have to either book on direct flights or those that do not transit through Europe.
There are now more than 1,000 cases in the United States and least 38 people have died of the virus.
“This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history,” the American president said in an address to the national from behind his table in the Oval Office, before he went on to announce the travel restrictions castigating Europe for not being vigilant enough.
“The European Union failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from China and other hotspots. As a result, a large number of new clusters in the United States were seeded by travellers from Europe,” he said in a move seen by his critics as an attempt to shield himself from political fallout of an out-of-control outbreak with an eye on his re-election bid coming November. The Trump administration is being seen by critics to be more eager to play down the outbreak than deal with it.
Officials at the forefront of the US fightback are cognizant of the real threat, however. “I can say we will see more cases, and things will get worse than they are right now,” Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said at a congressional hearing. “How much worse we’ll get will depend on our ability to do two things: to contain the influx of people who are infected coming from the outside, and the ability to contain and mitigate within our own country.”
Airlines have been slashing their flight schedules, especially on international routes, to cope with a sharp decline in travel demand among fearful customers. Business travel is slowing as companies impose restrictions on employee travel and major conferences are cancelled.
With air travel and airline revenue plummeting, airlines are losing their appetite for new planes. On Wednesday, Boeing’s stock fell 18 per cent – its biggest one-day percentage drop since 1974 – and the iconic airplane manufacturer announced a hiring freeze.
In January, the US issued a similar ban on people coming into the country from China. That policy was later extended to people who had been in Iran.
The World Health Organization has labeled Covid-19 a pandemic, citing its alarming spread and severity.
