President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered travel from Europe to the United States restricted for 30 days, responding to mounting pressure to take action against a rapidly spreading coronavirus outbreak disrupting nearly all corners of US daily life.
Trump, whose administration has come under sharp criticism for its response to a public health crisis that he has previously downplayed, also announced several steps aimed at blunting economic fallout posed by coronavirus.
The travel order, which starts on midnight Friday, does not apply to Britain, or to Americans undergoing “appropriate screenings,” Trump said.
“We are marshaling the full power of the federal government and the private sector to protect the American people,” Trump said in a prime-time televised address from the Oval Office.”This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history.”
Soon after, Democrats in the US House of Representatives unveiled a broad package of proposals to help Americans affected by the coronavirus outbreak, including paid sick leave, family leave and medical leave.
In the video below, the US opens its first coronavirus containment area in city just outside of Manhattan, New York
‘Trade will in no way be affected by the travel restriction’
Trump, whose re-election bid on November 3 could hinge on how well he responds to the crisis, stopped short of declaring a national emergency as the number of coronavirus infections continued to mount.
He did not address a shortage of diagnostic test kits, which according to experts has made it difficult to gauge the full scale of outbreaks in the United States and curtail transmission of the virus.
After triggering confusion by suggesting that trade and cargo from Europe would also be suspended, Trump clarified that trade will in no way be affected by the travel restriction.
“The restriction stops people not goods,” he said in a tweet moments after his speech.
Amid the confusion, Washington, D.C., resident Michelle Cravez, 30, who is visiting her brother in Prague, noticed her phone exploding with notifications after a night out. Cravez,who planned to travel home next week, quickly re-booked a ticket leaving early on Friday morning.
“It quickly became apparent that demand was pushing costs up and seats were going fast,” she said in a Twitter conversation with a Reuters reporter. “Shortly after, we find out that this ruling may not apply to citizens. Still, with everything so fluid – who knows whether flights start getting canceled – we decided to bite the bullet and book a new itinerary that got us home before the deadline.”
Trump’s travel order, which applies to 26 European countries, capped a day of mounting upheavals on the domestic front from a highly contagious respiratory illness, also known as COVID-19.
