That amount was not stockpile bush left no one replenished obamma or trump
Wake Up, America! Wake Up! PLEASE!!
- Thread starter Drillher4me
- Start date
- Status
it is just something you always seem to push....and we try to fight...….you support killer and his programs....and now don't want credit for all the deaths....what kind of trumptard are you
NOW you are being completely fucking ignorant.....well nothing new for you anyway...….first trump been here 3 years...if he was worried why didn't he restock...….second...everyone told him the virus was here in Jan...he ignored and sent the needed supplies to china in Feb....leaving the US short!….kind of like your intelligance
Amid coronavirus, George W. Bush's 2005 pandemic warning resurfaces, may underscore slip-ups by successors
Newly resurfaced footage of then-President George W. Bush urgently warning of the risks posed by pandemics in 2005 -- "If we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare," Bush said at the National Institutes of Health -- has drawn belated praise from his detractors, and raised...
Amid coronavirus, George W. Bush's 2005 pandemic warning resurfaces, may underscore slip-ups by successors
Newly resurfaced footage of then-President George W. Bush urgently warning of the risks posed by pandemics in 2005 -- "If we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare," Bush said at the National Institutes of Health -- has drawn belated praise from his detractors, and raised...
Amid coronavirus, George W. Bush's 2005 pandemic warning resurfaces, may underscore slip-ups by successors
Newly resurfaced footage of then-President George W. Bush urgently warning of the risks posed by pandemics in 2005 -- "If we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare," Bush said at the National Institutes of Health -- has drawn belated praise from his detractors, and raised...www.foxnews.com
Amid coronavirus, George W. Bush's 2005 pandemic warning resurfaces, may underscore slip-ups by successors
Newly resurfaced footage of then-President George W. Bush urgently warning of the risks posed by pandemics in 2005 -- "If we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare," Bush said at the National Institutes of Health -- has drawn belated praise from his detractors, and raised...
Amid coronavirus, George W. Bush's 2005 pandemic warning resurfaces, may underscore slip-ups by successors
Newly resurfaced footage of then-President George W. Bush urgently warning of the risks posed by pandemics in 2005 -- "If we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will be too late to prepare," Bush said at the National Institutes of Health -- has drawn belated praise from his detractors, and raised...
New data on New York coronavirus deaths: Most had these underlying illnesses; 61% were men
The majority of New York’s more than 4,700 coronavirus deaths were men, and 86% of all deaths were among people who had underlying illnesses.
amp.usatoday.com
No not really. I wasn't referring to "taking sides" and I don't recall predicting "Doom and Gloom" with Osoma. Actually, if you cared to pay attention the only thing I really complained about the man was his sell out to crony capitalist insurance companies, the bailouts, and giving more money to the banks AND letting them repo the homes they over sold (sounds almost like something Trump would have done
) . So if you think "doing the exact same thing with Osoma" was so wrong, then why are you doing the "Exact same thing"? I can agree there is a lot wrong with the republicans, but there is a lot wrong with the Democrats as well - if you can still call either party that. It's more like the Crony Capitalist vs the "Dangle the carrot SJWs".
I can't help you're a gullible idiot! I won't obstruct this President of the United States, but I damn well won't SUPPORT the bastard.
You spread negativity try being positive . everything is going to be fine. You get at least four more years
There are NO comparisons to the character, integrity and honesty between Barrack Obama and Donald Trump ... its not even close.
Its really not even up for a comparison discussion.
Trump will hurt this country to better himself ... enough said of a man who's been involved in thousands of lawsuits. I'm not willing to discuss that.
World War II veteran busts a move in quarantine
A 97-year-old World War II veteran is showing all of us that during these uncertain times, sometimes the best medicine can be to get up and dance.
www.wcvb.com
A Complete List of Trump’s Attempts to Play Down Coronavirus
He could have taken action. He didn’t.
President Trump made his first public comments about the coronavirus on Jan. 22, in a television interview from Davos with CNBC’s Joe Kernen. The first American case had been announced the day before, and Kernen asked Trump, “Are there worries about a pandemic at this point?”
The president responded: “No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
By this point, the seriousness of the virus was becoming clearer. It had spread from China to four other countries. China was starting to take drastic measures and was on the verge of closing off the city of Wuhan.
In the weeks that followed, Trump faced a series of choices. He could have taken aggressive measures to slow the spread of the virus. He could have insisted that the United States ramp up efforts to produce test kits. He could have emphasized the risks that the virus presented and urged Americans to take precautions if they had reason to believe they were sick. He could have used the powers of the presidency to reduce the number of people who would ultimately get sick.
He did none of those things.
I’ve reviewed all of his public statements and actions on coronavirus over the last two months, and they show a president who put almost no priority on public health. Trump’s priorities were different: Making the virus sound like a minor nuisance. Exaggerating his administration’s response. Blaming foreigners and, anachronistically, the Obama administration. Claiming incorrectly that the situation was improving. Trying to cheer up stock market investors. (It was fitting that his first public comments were from Davos and on CNBC.)
Now that the severity of the virus is undeniable, Trump is already trying to present an alternate history of the last two months. Below are the facts — a timeline of what the president was saying, alongside statements from public-health experts as well as data on the virus.
Late January
On the same day that Trump was dismissing the risks on CNBC, Tom Frieden, who ran the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for eight years, wrote an op-ed for the health care publication Stat. In it, Frieden warned that the virus would continue spreading. “We need to learn — and fast — about how it spreads,” he wrote.
It was one of many such warnings from prominent experts in late January. Many focused on the need to expand the capacity to test for the virus. In a Wall Street Journal article titled, “Act Now to Prevent an American Epidemic,” Luciana Borio and Scott Gottlieb — both former Trump administration officials — wrote:
Trump, however, repeatedly told Americans that there was no reason to worry. On Jan. 24, he tweeted, “It will all work out well.” On Jan. 28, he retweeted a headline from One America News, an outlet with a history of spreading false conspiracy theories: “Johnson & Johnson to create coronavirus vaccine.” On Jan. 30, during a speech in Michigan, he said: “We have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment — five. And those people are all recuperating successfully.”
That same day, the World Health Organization declared coronavirus to be a “public-health emergency of international concern.” It announced 7,818 confirmed cases around the world.
Jan. 31
Trump took his only early, aggressive action against the virus on Jan. 31: He barred most foreigners who had recently visited China from entering the United States. It was a good move.
But it was only one modest move, not the sweeping solution that Trump portrayed it to be. It didn’t apply to Americans who had been traveling in China, for example. And while it generated some criticism from Democrats, it wasn’t nearly as unpopular as Trump has since suggested. Two days after announcing the policy, Trump went on Fox News and exaggerated the impact in an interview with Sean Hannity.
“Coronavirus,” Hannity said. “How concerned are you?”
Trump replied: “Well, we pretty much shut it down coming in from China. We have a tremendous relationship with China, which is a very positive thing. Getting along with China, getting along with Russia, getting along with these countries.”
By the time of that interview, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases around the world had surged to 14,557, a near doubling over the previous three days.
Early February
On Feb. 5, the C.D.C. began shipping coronavirus test kits to laboratories around the country. But the tests suffered from a technical flaw and didn’t produce reliable results, labs discovered.
The technical problems were understandable: Creating a new virus test is not easy. What’s less understandable, experts say, is why the Trump administration officials were so lax about finding a work-around, even as other countries were creating reliable tests.
The Trump administration could have begun to use a functioning test from the World Health Organization, but didn’t. It could have removed regulations that prevented private hospitals and labs from quickly developing their own tests, but didn’t. The inaction meant that the United States fell behind South Korea, Singapore and China in fighting the virus. “We just twiddled our thumbs as the coronavirus waltzed in,” William Hanage, a Harvard epidemiologist, wrote.
Trump, for his part, spent these first weeks of February telling Americans that the problem was going away. On Feb. 10, he repeatedly said — in a speech to governors, at a campaign rally and in an interview with Trish Regan of Fox Business — that warm spring weather could ******* the virus. “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away,” he told the rally.
On Feb. 19, he told a Phoenix television station, “I think the numbers are going to get progressively better as we go along.” Four days later, he pronounced the situation “very much under control,” and added: “We had 12, at one point. And now they’ve gotten very much better. Many of them are fully recovered.”
His message was clear: Coronavirus is a small problem, and it is getting smaller. In truth, the shortage of testing meant that the country didn’t know how bad the problem was. All of the available indicators suggested it was getting worse, rapidly.
On Feb. 23, the World Health Organization announced that the virus was in 30 countries, with 78,811 confirmed cases, a more than fivefold increase over the previous three weeks.
Late February
Trump seemed largely uninterested in the global virus statistics during this period, but there were other indicators — stock-market indexes — that mattered a lot to him. And by the last week of February, those market indexes were falling.
The president reacted by adding a new element to his public remarks. He began blaming others.
He criticized CNN and MSNBC for “panicking markets.” He said at a South Carolina rally — falsely — that “the Democrat policy of open borders” had brought the virus into the country. He lashed out at “Do Nothing Democrat comrades.” He tweeted about “Cryin’ Chuck Schumer,” mocking Schumer for arguing that Trump should be more aggressive in fighting the virus. The next week, Trump would blame an Obama administration regulation for slowing the production of test kits. There was no truth to the charge.
Throughout late February, Trump also continued to claim the situation was improving. On Feb. 26, he said: “We’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up.” On Feb. 27, he predicted: “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.” On Feb. 29, he said a vaccine would be available “very quickly” and “very rapidly” and praised his administration’s actions as “the most aggressive taken by any country.” None of these claims were true.
By the end of February, there were 85,403 confirmed cases, in 55 countries around the world.
Early March
Almost two decades ago, during George W. Bush’s presidency, the federal government developed guidelines for communicating during a public-health crisis. Among the core principles are “be first,” “be right,” “be credible,” “show respect” and “promote action.”
But the Trump administration’s response to coronavirus, as a Washington Post news story put it, is “breaking almost every rule in the book.”
The inconsistent and sometimes outright incorrect information coming from the White House has left Americans unsure of what, if anything, to do. By early March, experts already were arguing for aggressive measures to slow the virus’s spread and avoid overwhelming the medical system. The presidential bully pulpit could have focused people on the need to change their behavior in a way that no private citizen could have. Trump could have specifically encouraged older people — at most risk from the virus — to be careful. Once again, he chose not to take action.
Instead, he suggested on multiple occasions that the virus was less serious than the flu. “We’re talking about a much smaller range” of deaths than from the flu, he said on March 2. “It’s very mild,” he told Hannity on March 4. On March 7, he said, “I’m not concerned at all.” On March 10, he promised: “It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”
The first part of March was also when more people began to understand that the United States had fallen behind on testing, and Trump administration officials responded with untruths.
Alex Azar, the secretary of health and human services, told ABC, “There is no testing kit shortage, nor has there ever been.” Trump, while touring the C.D.C. on March 6, said, “Anybody that wants a test can get a test.”
That C.D.C. tour was a microcosm of Trump’s entire approach to the crisis. While speaking on camera, he made statements that were outright wrong, like the testing claim. He brought up issues that had nothing to do with the virus, like his impeachment. He made clear that he cared more about his image than about people’s well-being, by explaining that he favored leaving infected passengers on a cruise ship so they wouldn’t increase the official number of American cases. He also suggested that he knew as much as any scientist:
Mid-March and beyond
On the night of March 11, Trump gave an Oval Office address meant to convey seriousness. It included some valuable advice, like the importance of hand-washing. But it also continued many of the old patterns of self-congratulation, blame-shifting and misinformation. Afterward, Trump aides corrected three different misstatements.
This pattern has continued in the days since the Oval Office address. Trump now seems to understand that coronavirus isn’t going away anytime soon. But he also seems to view it mostly as a public-relations emergency for himself rather than a public-health emergency for the country. On Sunday, he used his Twitter feed to lash out at Schumer and Joe Biden and to praise Michael Flynn, the former Trump aide who pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I.
Around the world, the official virus count has climbed above 142,000. In the United States, scientists expect that between tens of millions and 215 million Americans will ultimately be infected, and the death toll could range from the tens of thousands to 1.7 million.
At every point, experts have emphasized that the country could reduce those terrible numbers by taking action. And at almost every point, the president has ignored their advice and insisted, “It’s going to be just fine.”
He could have taken action. He didn’t.
President Trump made his first public comments about the coronavirus on Jan. 22, in a television interview from Davos with CNBC’s Joe Kernen. The first American case had been announced the day before, and Kernen asked Trump, “Are there worries about a pandemic at this point?”
The president responded: “No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
By this point, the seriousness of the virus was becoming clearer. It had spread from China to four other countries. China was starting to take drastic measures and was on the verge of closing off the city of Wuhan.
In the weeks that followed, Trump faced a series of choices. He could have taken aggressive measures to slow the spread of the virus. He could have insisted that the United States ramp up efforts to produce test kits. He could have emphasized the risks that the virus presented and urged Americans to take precautions if they had reason to believe they were sick. He could have used the powers of the presidency to reduce the number of people who would ultimately get sick.
He did none of those things.
I’ve reviewed all of his public statements and actions on coronavirus over the last two months, and they show a president who put almost no priority on public health. Trump’s priorities were different: Making the virus sound like a minor nuisance. Exaggerating his administration’s response. Blaming foreigners and, anachronistically, the Obama administration. Claiming incorrectly that the situation was improving. Trying to cheer up stock market investors. (It was fitting that his first public comments were from Davos and on CNBC.)
Now that the severity of the virus is undeniable, Trump is already trying to present an alternate history of the last two months. Below are the facts — a timeline of what the president was saying, alongside statements from public-health experts as well as data on the virus.
Late January
On the same day that Trump was dismissing the risks on CNBC, Tom Frieden, who ran the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for eight years, wrote an op-ed for the health care publication Stat. In it, Frieden warned that the virus would continue spreading. “We need to learn — and fast — about how it spreads,” he wrote.
It was one of many such warnings from prominent experts in late January. Many focused on the need to expand the capacity to test for the virus. In a Wall Street Journal article titled, “Act Now to Prevent an American Epidemic,” Luciana Borio and Scott Gottlieb — both former Trump administration officials — wrote:
Trump, however, repeatedly told Americans that there was no reason to worry. On Jan. 24, he tweeted, “It will all work out well.” On Jan. 28, he retweeted a headline from One America News, an outlet with a history of spreading false conspiracy theories: “Johnson & Johnson to create coronavirus vaccine.” On Jan. 30, during a speech in Michigan, he said: “We have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment — five. And those people are all recuperating successfully.”
That same day, the World Health Organization declared coronavirus to be a “public-health emergency of international concern.” It announced 7,818 confirmed cases around the world.
Jan. 31
Trump took his only early, aggressive action against the virus on Jan. 31: He barred most foreigners who had recently visited China from entering the United States. It was a good move.
But it was only one modest move, not the sweeping solution that Trump portrayed it to be. It didn’t apply to Americans who had been traveling in China, for example. And while it generated some criticism from Democrats, it wasn’t nearly as unpopular as Trump has since suggested. Two days after announcing the policy, Trump went on Fox News and exaggerated the impact in an interview with Sean Hannity.
“Coronavirus,” Hannity said. “How concerned are you?”
Trump replied: “Well, we pretty much shut it down coming in from China. We have a tremendous relationship with China, which is a very positive thing. Getting along with China, getting along with Russia, getting along with these countries.”
By the time of that interview, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases around the world had surged to 14,557, a near doubling over the previous three days.
Early February
On Feb. 5, the C.D.C. began shipping coronavirus test kits to laboratories around the country. But the tests suffered from a technical flaw and didn’t produce reliable results, labs discovered.
The technical problems were understandable: Creating a new virus test is not easy. What’s less understandable, experts say, is why the Trump administration officials were so lax about finding a work-around, even as other countries were creating reliable tests.
The Trump administration could have begun to use a functioning test from the World Health Organization, but didn’t. It could have removed regulations that prevented private hospitals and labs from quickly developing their own tests, but didn’t. The inaction meant that the United States fell behind South Korea, Singapore and China in fighting the virus. “We just twiddled our thumbs as the coronavirus waltzed in,” William Hanage, a Harvard epidemiologist, wrote.
Trump, for his part, spent these first weeks of February telling Americans that the problem was going away. On Feb. 10, he repeatedly said — in a speech to governors, at a campaign rally and in an interview with Trish Regan of Fox Business — that warm spring weather could ******* the virus. “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away,” he told the rally.
On Feb. 19, he told a Phoenix television station, “I think the numbers are going to get progressively better as we go along.” Four days later, he pronounced the situation “very much under control,” and added: “We had 12, at one point. And now they’ve gotten very much better. Many of them are fully recovered.”
His message was clear: Coronavirus is a small problem, and it is getting smaller. In truth, the shortage of testing meant that the country didn’t know how bad the problem was. All of the available indicators suggested it was getting worse, rapidly.
On Feb. 23, the World Health Organization announced that the virus was in 30 countries, with 78,811 confirmed cases, a more than fivefold increase over the previous three weeks.
Late February
Trump seemed largely uninterested in the global virus statistics during this period, but there were other indicators — stock-market indexes — that mattered a lot to him. And by the last week of February, those market indexes were falling.
The president reacted by adding a new element to his public remarks. He began blaming others.
He criticized CNN and MSNBC for “panicking markets.” He said at a South Carolina rally — falsely — that “the Democrat policy of open borders” had brought the virus into the country. He lashed out at “Do Nothing Democrat comrades.” He tweeted about “Cryin’ Chuck Schumer,” mocking Schumer for arguing that Trump should be more aggressive in fighting the virus. The next week, Trump would blame an Obama administration regulation for slowing the production of test kits. There was no truth to the charge.
Throughout late February, Trump also continued to claim the situation was improving. On Feb. 26, he said: “We’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up.” On Feb. 27, he predicted: “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.” On Feb. 29, he said a vaccine would be available “very quickly” and “very rapidly” and praised his administration’s actions as “the most aggressive taken by any country.” None of these claims were true.
By the end of February, there were 85,403 confirmed cases, in 55 countries around the world.
Early March
Almost two decades ago, during George W. Bush’s presidency, the federal government developed guidelines for communicating during a public-health crisis. Among the core principles are “be first,” “be right,” “be credible,” “show respect” and “promote action.”
But the Trump administration’s response to coronavirus, as a Washington Post news story put it, is “breaking almost every rule in the book.”
The inconsistent and sometimes outright incorrect information coming from the White House has left Americans unsure of what, if anything, to do. By early March, experts already were arguing for aggressive measures to slow the virus’s spread and avoid overwhelming the medical system. The presidential bully pulpit could have focused people on the need to change their behavior in a way that no private citizen could have. Trump could have specifically encouraged older people — at most risk from the virus — to be careful. Once again, he chose not to take action.
Instead, he suggested on multiple occasions that the virus was less serious than the flu. “We’re talking about a much smaller range” of deaths than from the flu, he said on March 2. “It’s very mild,” he told Hannity on March 4. On March 7, he said, “I’m not concerned at all.” On March 10, he promised: “It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”
The first part of March was also when more people began to understand that the United States had fallen behind on testing, and Trump administration officials responded with untruths.
Alex Azar, the secretary of health and human services, told ABC, “There is no testing kit shortage, nor has there ever been.” Trump, while touring the C.D.C. on March 6, said, “Anybody that wants a test can get a test.”
That C.D.C. tour was a microcosm of Trump’s entire approach to the crisis. While speaking on camera, he made statements that were outright wrong, like the testing claim. He brought up issues that had nothing to do with the virus, like his impeachment. He made clear that he cared more about his image than about people’s well-being, by explaining that he favored leaving infected passengers on a cruise ship so they wouldn’t increase the official number of American cases. He also suggested that he knew as much as any scientist:
On March 10, the World Health Organization reported 113,702 cases of the virus in more than 100 countries.
Mid-March and beyond
On the night of March 11, Trump gave an Oval Office address meant to convey seriousness. It included some valuable advice, like the importance of hand-washing. But it also continued many of the old patterns of self-congratulation, blame-shifting and misinformation. Afterward, Trump aides corrected three different misstatements.
This pattern has continued in the days since the Oval Office address. Trump now seems to understand that coronavirus isn’t going away anytime soon. But he also seems to view it mostly as a public-relations emergency for himself rather than a public-health emergency for the country. On Sunday, he used his Twitter feed to lash out at Schumer and Joe Biden and to praise Michael Flynn, the former Trump aide who pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I.
Around the world, the official virus count has climbed above 142,000. In the United States, scientists expect that between tens of millions and 215 million Americans will ultimately be infected, and the death toll could range from the tens of thousands to 1.7 million.
At every point, experts have emphasized that the country could reduce those terrible numbers by taking action. And at almost every point, the president has ignored their advice and insisted, “It’s going to be just fine.”
I'm going to let the Chicago to Detroit corridor go but know that, most people dying from it are not travelers to China or cruise ship aficionados.
We should have be able and ready to perform option 2. Regardless of when we started, I'd like to know why Singapore and South Korea were able to get a hand on this long before us, and with much more population density. We should be closer to their models not Italy or Spain. Their best and brightest go to our schools.
The Facts on Trump’s Travel Restrictions
President Donald Trump has made a number of misleading statements about his decision on Jan. 31 to impose travel restrictions related to the novel coronavirus epidemic.
Azar declared a public health emergency for the novel coronavirus on Jan. 31, and announced the travel restrictions to and from China, effective Feb. 2. On Feb. 29, Trump expanded those travel restrictions to Iran. Trump has repeatedly boasted that his decision to impose the travel restrictions was bold and worked. But his rhetoric has sometimes stretched the facts.
A Travel ‘Ban’?
For starters, health experts say Trump was wrong to refer to the travel restrictions as a “travel ban,” as he did in a telephone interview on March 4 with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. During a town hall on March 5, Trump said he “closed down the borders to China and to other areas that are very badly affected.” That’s not accurate.
As Azar explained when he announced the travel restrictions on Jan. 31, the policy prohibits non-U.S. citizens, other than the immediate family of U.S. citizens and permanent residents, who have traveled to China within the last two weeks from entering the U.S.
At a House subcommittee hearing on the coronavirus on Feb. 5, Ron Klain, White House Ebola response coordinator under the Obama administration, took issue with the characterization of the travel restrictions as a travel “ban.”
“We don’t have a travel ban,” Klain said. “We have a travel Band-Aid right now. First, before it was imposed, 300,000 people came here from China in the previous month. So, the horse is out of the barn.”
“There’s no restriction on Americans going back and forth,” Klain said. “There are warnings. People should abide by those warnings. But today, 30 planes will land in Los Angeles that either originated in Beijing or came here on one-stops, 30 in San Francisco, 25 in New York City. Okay? So, unless we think that the color of the passport someone carries is a meaningful public health restriction, we have not placed a meaningful public health restriction.”
Indeed, on Jan. 24, a week before the travel restrictions, the CDC confirmed two cases of the novel coronavirus in the U.S. from people who had returned from Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began.
Furthermore, Klain said, the import of goods from China is exempt from the travel restrictions, “and, of course, the people who fly the planes and drive the boats that bring those goods from China. We couldn’t ban that activity. We vitally need that. Ninety percent of the antibiotics in this country come from China. All kinds of vital medical supplies … we will use to treat people. So, travel bans … that’s not what we’re imposing, that’s not what exists.”
As part of the travel restrictions, Azar announced that any U.S. citizen returning to the U.S. who had been in Hubei Province in China in the previous 14 days would be subject to mandatory quarantine and health screening. U.S. citizens returning from mainland China outside Hubei Province were ordered to undergo health screenings and “up to 14 days of monitored self-quarantine to ensure they’ve not contracted the virus and do not pose a public health risk,” Azar said.
At the time the restrictions were announced, there were only six confirmed cases of the novel virus in the U.S. The outbreak, which began in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019, has now spread to more than 70 countries, including the U.S. According to a Johns Hopkins University case tracker and a New York Times database, as of March 6, more than 250 people in the U.S. have been infected with the new disease, known as COVID-19, and at least 14 have died.
Did Trump Buck the Experts?
Trump has repeatedly said that his decision to impose the travel restrictions on Jan. 31 was made despite objections from most of the experts on containing the spread of infectious disease.
“But we closed those borders very early, against the advice of a lot of professionals, and we turned out to be right. I took a lot of heat for that,” Trump said on March 4.
Asked by Hannity the same day about his rationale at the time he made the decision, Trump said, “I would say everybody said, it’s too early, it’s too soon, and good people, brilliant people, in many ways, doctors and lawyers and, frankly, a lot of people that work on this stuff almost exclusively. And they said, don’t do it.”
Trump repeated this claim at his town hall in Scranton on March 5, saying that as soon as he heard that China had a problem with the coronavirus, he asked how many people the U.S. had coming in from China. “Nobody but me asked that question,” Trump said. Trump added that his decision to impose the travel restrictions was made “against the advice of almost everybody.”
Everybody? Not according to Azar, who said it was the “uniform” recommendation of experts in his department.
“The travel restrictions that we put in place in consultation with the president were very measured and incremental,” Azar told reporters on Feb. 7. “These were the uniform recommendations of the career public health officials here at HHS.”
The World Health Organization cautioned against the overuse of travel restrictions, but stopped short of saying that Trump’s decision in the U.S. — or anyone else’s in other countries — was inappropriate.
“[W]e reiterate our call to all countries not to impose restrictions inconsistent with the International Health Regulations,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told its executive board. “Such restrictions can have the effect of increasing fear and stigma, with little public health benefit. So far, 22 countries have reported such restrictions to WHO. Where such measures have been implemented, we urge that they are short in duration, proportionate to the public health risks, and are reconsidered regularly as the situation evolves.”
As we said, three experts called by Democrats at a House subcommittee hearing on Feb. 5 questioned the decision. Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, was one of them.
Nuzzo, Feb. 5: [W]e need to seriously reexamine the current policy of banning travel from China and quarantining returning travelers. All of the evidence we have indicates that travel restrictions and quarantines directed at individual countries are unlikely to keep the virus out of our borders. These measures may exacerbate the epidemic’s social and economic tolls and can make us less safe. Simply put, this virus is spreading too quickly and too silently, and our surveillance is too limited for us to truly know which countries have active transmission and which don’t. The virus could enter the U.S. from other parts of the world not on our restricted list, and it may already be circulating here.
The U.S. was a target of travel bans and quarantines during the 2009 flu pandemic. It didn’t work to stop the spread, and it hurt our country. I am concerned that by our singling out China for travel bans, we are effectively penalizing it for reporting cases. This may diminish its willingness to further share data and chill other countries’ willingness to be transparent about their own outbreaks. Travel bans and quarantines will make us less safe if they divert attention and resources from higher priority disease mitigation approaches that we know are needed to respond to cases within the United States.
… We often see, when we have emerging disease outbreaks, our first instinct is to try to lock down travel to prevent the introduction of virus to our country. And that is a completely understandable instinct. I have never seen instances in which that has worked when we are talking about a virus at this scale.
Respiratory viruses like this one, unlike others–they just move quickly. They are hard to spot because they look like many other diseases. It’s very difficult to interrupt them at borders. You would need to have complete surveillance in order to do that. And we simply don’t have that.
During the hearing, Dr. Jennifer Bouey, chair of China policy studies at the Rand Corporation, agreed saying that the policy to restrict travel “doesn’t help that much in this–the current situation.”
But according to Paul Offit, chair of vaccinology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, those kinds of opinions were in the minority at the time the president made his decision.
“I don’t know anyone who thought the travel restrictions were a bad idea early on,” Offit told us in a phone interview.
When a virus like that is restricted to one location, as it appeared to be early on, travel restrictions can lessen the odds of it spreading to this country, Offit said. Over time, however, and as cases began to be identified in the U.S., travel restrictions make much less of a difference, he said.
Epidemiologists and former U.S. health officials told Time that the initial travel restrictions were valid and “likely helped to slow the spread of the virus. The problem, they say, is that once it was clear that the virus was within our borders officials did not pivot quickly enough to changing circumstances.”
Democratic Criticism
Trump has repeatedly claimed that Democrats have “loudly criticized and protested” his imposition of the travel restrictions, and have called the decision “racist.” But while leading Democrats have been outspoken in their criticism of the president’s overall response to the epidemic, very few have criticized his decision to impose limited travel restrictions.
“I took a lot of heat,” Trump said during a Feb. 27 press conference. “I mean, some people called me racist because I made a decision so early. And we had never done that as a country before, let alone early. So it was a, you know, bold decision. It turned out to be a good decision. But I was criticized by the Democrats. They called me a racist because I made that decision, if you can believe that one.”
At a rally in South Carolina the following day, Trump said Democrats “loudly criticized and protested” his decision.
“But, anyway — but we’ve done an incredible job because we closed early,” Trump said in a meeting with African American leaders on Feb. 28. “And actually, the Democrats said I was a racist. Not from black-people standpoint, but from Asian-people standpoint, from Chinese-people standpoint. They said I was a racist because I closed our country to people coming in from certain areas. They called me a racist.”
We reached out to the Trump campaign and asked for names, but we did not get a response. We scoured news clips and could find only a couple instances of elected Democrats criticizing the president’s action to restrict travel.
In the House subcommittee hearing on Feb. 5 that we referenced earlier, several witnesses called by the Democrats expressed concerns about the travel restrictions and warned they could do more harm than good.
And at least one Democrat agreed.
“The United States and other countries around the world have put in place unprecedented travel restrictions in response to the virus,” said Democratic Rep. Eliot L. Engel. “These measures have not proven to improve public health outcomes, rather they tend to cause economic harm and to stoke racist and discriminatory responses to this epidemic.”
A day earlier, Democratic Rep. Ami Bera, who presided over the hearing, told Politico, “In our response we can’t create prejudices and harbor anxieties toward one population.” Bera told Politico the decision to impose travel restrictions “probably doesn’t make sense” given that the outbreak had already spread to several other countries by that point. “At this juncture, it’s going to be very hard to contain the virus,” Bera said.
But the Democratic leaders in Congress have simply not mentioned Trump’s travel restrictions.
In a Feb. 25 tweet, Trump claimed that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer “didn’t like my early travel closings.” Trump’s comment appears to be based on a fabricated tweet that circulated widely on Facebook.
Schumer has been critical of the Trump administration’s response to the spread of the novel coronavirus. But he hasn’t mentioned the travel restrictions in that criticism.
In Trump’s Fox News interview on March 4, host Sean Hannity said former vice president and current Democratic challenger Joe Biden “accused the president of being xenophobic, while he was trying to protect the health of the American people.”
On the day Trump imposed the travel restrictions, Biden did criticize Trump for his “record of hysteria and xenophobia,” but it is unclear whether Biden was referring to Trump’s travel restrictions, or Trump’s overall qualifications to deal with the epidemic.
“We have right now a crisis with the coronavirus, emanating from China,” Biden said on Jan. 31 at a campaign event in Iowa. “A national emergency worldwide alerts. The American people need to have a president who they can trust what he says about it, that he is going to act rationally about it. In moments like this, this is where the credibility of the president is most needed, as he explains what we should and should not do. This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia – hysterical xenophobia – and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science.”
In an op-ed published several days prior in USA Today, Biden similarly argued: “The possibility of a pandemic is a challenge Donald Trump is unqualified to handle as president.” Biden wrote that he recalled “how Trump sought to stoke fear and stigma during the 2014 Ebola epidemic.” Trump, Biden wrote, “railed against the evidence-based response our administration put in place — which quelled the crisis and saved hundreds of thousands of lives — in favor of reactionary travel bans that would only have made things worse.”
Although Democratic leaders and Democratic presidential candidates have been highly critical of Trump’s response to the coronavirus, we couldn’t find any examples of them directly and clearly criticizing the travel restrictions.
In a Feb. 4 letter to Trump, Democratic Reps. Nita Lowey, chair of the Appropriations Committee, and Rose DeLauro, chair of one of the subcommittees, wrote that they “strongly support” the president’s decision to declare a public health emergency in response to the novel coronavirus outbreak, and they specifically cited the administration’s actions to impose “significant travel restrictions.”
Have Travel Restrictions ‘Saved a Lot of Lives’?
Trump said his “bold” decision has since been vindicated, that it has “saved a lot of lives” and that because of his decision “that’s why we have a very small number of people that we have to really worry about.”
At a press conference on Feb. 29 attended by Trump, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, praised “the original decision that was made by the president” to impose travel restrictions to and from China.
“We prevented travel from China to the United States,” said Fauci, who has worked for multiple administrations. “If we had not done that, we would have had many, many more cases right here that we would have to be dealing with.”
But not everyone agrees.
Nuzzo, the senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said there’s no evidence, at least, that the travel restrictions have saved lives or reduced the number of cases in the U.S.
“We have not seen any evidence that shows the travel restrictions stopped or slowed down transmission of the virus that causes COVID-19,” Nuzzo told us via email. “It is possible that it did, but there is no evidence to show this. Rather there are a number of reasons to believe that this may very well not be the case.”
Chiefly, she said, that’s because “we weren’t seriously looking for cases in the US.”
“If you had mild infection, you were not tested,” Nuzzo said. “If you had viral pneumonia not requiring oxygen but had not been to Wuhan, you wouldn’t have been tested.”
“Prior to the US travel restrictions, China began suspending outbound flights,” Nuzzo said. “Airlines also began canceling flights due to low travel volume. Then, the US implemented travel restrictions, which further reduced travel from China. The exception was Americans who were returning home from China. These folks were subject to quarantine upon return. A number of cases were found among these individuals. If you only test travelers from China and you greatly reduce the number of travelers coming from China, then you would be likely to not find many cases.
“But it doesn’t mean the virus hadn’t entered the US prior to travel restrictions,” Nuzzo said, as data now suggests occurred in Washington state.
Also, she said other countries, including Japan, Singapore and Korea, had a significant number of coronavirus cases, but they weren’t subject to travel restrictions. The U.S. “would likely not have picked it up” if travelers coming to the U.S. from those countries “because we weren’t using these other countries as criteria for testing.”
A modeling study published in Science magazine on March 6, “The effect of travel restrictions on the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak,” concluded that, “In areas affected by the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19), travel restrictions will only modestly impact the spread of the outbreak,” according to a press release for the study.
“Based on the study’s results, the authors say the greatest benefit to mitigating the epidemic will come from public health interventions and behavioral changes that achieve a considerable reduction in the disease transmissibility – factors like early detection, isolation, and handwashing,” according to the press release.
The authors concluded that travel restrictions introduced by the Chinese government in Wuhan in Jan. 23 and the halting of airline flights to and from China starting in early February at first slowed the spread of the disease to the rest of the world. Even still, a large number of individuals exposed to the virus had been traveling internationally without being detected and, the authors note, the number of imported cases around the world went up in a matter of weeks.
“Moving forward we expect that travel restrictions to COVID-19 affected areas will have modest effects, and that transmission-reduction interventions will provide the greatest benefit to mitigate the epidemic,” the authors wrote.
President Donald Trump has made a number of misleading statements about his decision on Jan. 31 to impose travel restrictions related to the novel coronavirus epidemic.
- Trump has referred to the travel restrictions as a “travel ban.” There isn’t an outright ban, as there are exceptions, including for Americans and their family members.
- Trump said he was “bold” in imposing travel restrictions even though “everybody said, it’s too early, it’s too soon” and “a lot of people that work on this stuff almost exclusively” told him “don’t do it.” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said the decision stemmed from “the uniform recommendations of the career public health officials here at HHS.”
- Trump said Democrats “loudly criticized and protested” his announced travel restrictions, and that they “called me a racist because I made that decision.” Trump is overstating Democratic opposition. None of the party’s congressional leaders and none of the Democratic candidates running for president have directly criticized that decision, though at least two Democrats have.
- Trump said the travel restrictions “saved a lot of lives” and reduced U.S. COVID-19 cases to “a very small number.” But experts say there isn’t enough data to make that determination. A study in the journal Science found the various travel limitations across the globe initially helped to slow the spread, but the number of cases worldwide rose anyway because the virus had already begun traveling undetected internationally.
Azar declared a public health emergency for the novel coronavirus on Jan. 31, and announced the travel restrictions to and from China, effective Feb. 2. On Feb. 29, Trump expanded those travel restrictions to Iran. Trump has repeatedly boasted that his decision to impose the travel restrictions was bold and worked. But his rhetoric has sometimes stretched the facts.
A Travel ‘Ban’?
For starters, health experts say Trump was wrong to refer to the travel restrictions as a “travel ban,” as he did in a telephone interview on March 4 with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. During a town hall on March 5, Trump said he “closed down the borders to China and to other areas that are very badly affected.” That’s not accurate.
As Azar explained when he announced the travel restrictions on Jan. 31, the policy prohibits non-U.S. citizens, other than the immediate family of U.S. citizens and permanent residents, who have traveled to China within the last two weeks from entering the U.S.
At a House subcommittee hearing on the coronavirus on Feb. 5, Ron Klain, White House Ebola response coordinator under the Obama administration, took issue with the characterization of the travel restrictions as a travel “ban.”
“We don’t have a travel ban,” Klain said. “We have a travel Band-Aid right now. First, before it was imposed, 300,000 people came here from China in the previous month. So, the horse is out of the barn.”
“There’s no restriction on Americans going back and forth,” Klain said. “There are warnings. People should abide by those warnings. But today, 30 planes will land in Los Angeles that either originated in Beijing or came here on one-stops, 30 in San Francisco, 25 in New York City. Okay? So, unless we think that the color of the passport someone carries is a meaningful public health restriction, we have not placed a meaningful public health restriction.”
Indeed, on Jan. 24, a week before the travel restrictions, the CDC confirmed two cases of the novel coronavirus in the U.S. from people who had returned from Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began.
Furthermore, Klain said, the import of goods from China is exempt from the travel restrictions, “and, of course, the people who fly the planes and drive the boats that bring those goods from China. We couldn’t ban that activity. We vitally need that. Ninety percent of the antibiotics in this country come from China. All kinds of vital medical supplies … we will use to treat people. So, travel bans … that’s not what we’re imposing, that’s not what exists.”
As part of the travel restrictions, Azar announced that any U.S. citizen returning to the U.S. who had been in Hubei Province in China in the previous 14 days would be subject to mandatory quarantine and health screening. U.S. citizens returning from mainland China outside Hubei Province were ordered to undergo health screenings and “up to 14 days of monitored self-quarantine to ensure they’ve not contracted the virus and do not pose a public health risk,” Azar said.
At the time the restrictions were announced, there were only six confirmed cases of the novel virus in the U.S. The outbreak, which began in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019, has now spread to more than 70 countries, including the U.S. According to a Johns Hopkins University case tracker and a New York Times database, as of March 6, more than 250 people in the U.S. have been infected with the new disease, known as COVID-19, and at least 14 have died.
Did Trump Buck the Experts?
Trump has repeatedly said that his decision to impose the travel restrictions on Jan. 31 was made despite objections from most of the experts on containing the spread of infectious disease.
“But we closed those borders very early, against the advice of a lot of professionals, and we turned out to be right. I took a lot of heat for that,” Trump said on March 4.
Asked by Hannity the same day about his rationale at the time he made the decision, Trump said, “I would say everybody said, it’s too early, it’s too soon, and good people, brilliant people, in many ways, doctors and lawyers and, frankly, a lot of people that work on this stuff almost exclusively. And they said, don’t do it.”
Trump repeated this claim at his town hall in Scranton on March 5, saying that as soon as he heard that China had a problem with the coronavirus, he asked how many people the U.S. had coming in from China. “Nobody but me asked that question,” Trump said. Trump added that his decision to impose the travel restrictions was made “against the advice of almost everybody.”
Everybody? Not according to Azar, who said it was the “uniform” recommendation of experts in his department.
“The travel restrictions that we put in place in consultation with the president were very measured and incremental,” Azar told reporters on Feb. 7. “These were the uniform recommendations of the career public health officials here at HHS.”
The World Health Organization cautioned against the overuse of travel restrictions, but stopped short of saying that Trump’s decision in the U.S. — or anyone else’s in other countries — was inappropriate.
“[W]e reiterate our call to all countries not to impose restrictions inconsistent with the International Health Regulations,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told its executive board. “Such restrictions can have the effect of increasing fear and stigma, with little public health benefit. So far, 22 countries have reported such restrictions to WHO. Where such measures have been implemented, we urge that they are short in duration, proportionate to the public health risks, and are reconsidered regularly as the situation evolves.”
As we said, three experts called by Democrats at a House subcommittee hearing on Feb. 5 questioned the decision. Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, was one of them.
Nuzzo, Feb. 5: [W]e need to seriously reexamine the current policy of banning travel from China and quarantining returning travelers. All of the evidence we have indicates that travel restrictions and quarantines directed at individual countries are unlikely to keep the virus out of our borders. These measures may exacerbate the epidemic’s social and economic tolls and can make us less safe. Simply put, this virus is spreading too quickly and too silently, and our surveillance is too limited for us to truly know which countries have active transmission and which don’t. The virus could enter the U.S. from other parts of the world not on our restricted list, and it may already be circulating here.
The U.S. was a target of travel bans and quarantines during the 2009 flu pandemic. It didn’t work to stop the spread, and it hurt our country. I am concerned that by our singling out China for travel bans, we are effectively penalizing it for reporting cases. This may diminish its willingness to further share data and chill other countries’ willingness to be transparent about their own outbreaks. Travel bans and quarantines will make us less safe if they divert attention and resources from higher priority disease mitigation approaches that we know are needed to respond to cases within the United States.
… We often see, when we have emerging disease outbreaks, our first instinct is to try to lock down travel to prevent the introduction of virus to our country. And that is a completely understandable instinct. I have never seen instances in which that has worked when we are talking about a virus at this scale.
Respiratory viruses like this one, unlike others–they just move quickly. They are hard to spot because they look like many other diseases. It’s very difficult to interrupt them at borders. You would need to have complete surveillance in order to do that. And we simply don’t have that.
During the hearing, Dr. Jennifer Bouey, chair of China policy studies at the Rand Corporation, agreed saying that the policy to restrict travel “doesn’t help that much in this–the current situation.”
But according to Paul Offit, chair of vaccinology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, those kinds of opinions were in the minority at the time the president made his decision.
“I don’t know anyone who thought the travel restrictions were a bad idea early on,” Offit told us in a phone interview.
When a virus like that is restricted to one location, as it appeared to be early on, travel restrictions can lessen the odds of it spreading to this country, Offit said. Over time, however, and as cases began to be identified in the U.S., travel restrictions make much less of a difference, he said.
Epidemiologists and former U.S. health officials told Time that the initial travel restrictions were valid and “likely helped to slow the spread of the virus. The problem, they say, is that once it was clear that the virus was within our borders officials did not pivot quickly enough to changing circumstances.”
Democratic Criticism
Trump has repeatedly claimed that Democrats have “loudly criticized and protested” his imposition of the travel restrictions, and have called the decision “racist.” But while leading Democrats have been outspoken in their criticism of the president’s overall response to the epidemic, very few have criticized his decision to impose limited travel restrictions.
“I took a lot of heat,” Trump said during a Feb. 27 press conference. “I mean, some people called me racist because I made a decision so early. And we had never done that as a country before, let alone early. So it was a, you know, bold decision. It turned out to be a good decision. But I was criticized by the Democrats. They called me a racist because I made that decision, if you can believe that one.”
At a rally in South Carolina the following day, Trump said Democrats “loudly criticized and protested” his decision.
“But, anyway — but we’ve done an incredible job because we closed early,” Trump said in a meeting with African American leaders on Feb. 28. “And actually, the Democrats said I was a racist. Not from black-people standpoint, but from Asian-people standpoint, from Chinese-people standpoint. They said I was a racist because I closed our country to people coming in from certain areas. They called me a racist.”
We reached out to the Trump campaign and asked for names, but we did not get a response. We scoured news clips and could find only a couple instances of elected Democrats criticizing the president’s action to restrict travel.
In the House subcommittee hearing on Feb. 5 that we referenced earlier, several witnesses called by the Democrats expressed concerns about the travel restrictions and warned they could do more harm than good.
And at least one Democrat agreed.
“The United States and other countries around the world have put in place unprecedented travel restrictions in response to the virus,” said Democratic Rep. Eliot L. Engel. “These measures have not proven to improve public health outcomes, rather they tend to cause economic harm and to stoke racist and discriminatory responses to this epidemic.”
A day earlier, Democratic Rep. Ami Bera, who presided over the hearing, told Politico, “In our response we can’t create prejudices and harbor anxieties toward one population.” Bera told Politico the decision to impose travel restrictions “probably doesn’t make sense” given that the outbreak had already spread to several other countries by that point. “At this juncture, it’s going to be very hard to contain the virus,” Bera said.
But the Democratic leaders in Congress have simply not mentioned Trump’s travel restrictions.
In a Feb. 25 tweet, Trump claimed that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer “didn’t like my early travel closings.” Trump’s comment appears to be based on a fabricated tweet that circulated widely on Facebook.
Schumer has been critical of the Trump administration’s response to the spread of the novel coronavirus. But he hasn’t mentioned the travel restrictions in that criticism.
In Trump’s Fox News interview on March 4, host Sean Hannity said former vice president and current Democratic challenger Joe Biden “accused the president of being xenophobic, while he was trying to protect the health of the American people.”
On the day Trump imposed the travel restrictions, Biden did criticize Trump for his “record of hysteria and xenophobia,” but it is unclear whether Biden was referring to Trump’s travel restrictions, or Trump’s overall qualifications to deal with the epidemic.
“We have right now a crisis with the coronavirus, emanating from China,” Biden said on Jan. 31 at a campaign event in Iowa. “A national emergency worldwide alerts. The American people need to have a president who they can trust what he says about it, that he is going to act rationally about it. In moments like this, this is where the credibility of the president is most needed, as he explains what we should and should not do. This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia – hysterical xenophobia – and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science.”
In an op-ed published several days prior in USA Today, Biden similarly argued: “The possibility of a pandemic is a challenge Donald Trump is unqualified to handle as president.” Biden wrote that he recalled “how Trump sought to stoke fear and stigma during the 2014 Ebola epidemic.” Trump, Biden wrote, “railed against the evidence-based response our administration put in place — which quelled the crisis and saved hundreds of thousands of lives — in favor of reactionary travel bans that would only have made things worse.”
Although Democratic leaders and Democratic presidential candidates have been highly critical of Trump’s response to the coronavirus, we couldn’t find any examples of them directly and clearly criticizing the travel restrictions.
In a Feb. 4 letter to Trump, Democratic Reps. Nita Lowey, chair of the Appropriations Committee, and Rose DeLauro, chair of one of the subcommittees, wrote that they “strongly support” the president’s decision to declare a public health emergency in response to the novel coronavirus outbreak, and they specifically cited the administration’s actions to impose “significant travel restrictions.”
Have Travel Restrictions ‘Saved a Lot of Lives’?
Trump said his “bold” decision has since been vindicated, that it has “saved a lot of lives” and that because of his decision “that’s why we have a very small number of people that we have to really worry about.”
At a press conference on Feb. 29 attended by Trump, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, praised “the original decision that was made by the president” to impose travel restrictions to and from China.
“We prevented travel from China to the United States,” said Fauci, who has worked for multiple administrations. “If we had not done that, we would have had many, many more cases right here that we would have to be dealing with.”
But not everyone agrees.
Nuzzo, the senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said there’s no evidence, at least, that the travel restrictions have saved lives or reduced the number of cases in the U.S.
“We have not seen any evidence that shows the travel restrictions stopped or slowed down transmission of the virus that causes COVID-19,” Nuzzo told us via email. “It is possible that it did, but there is no evidence to show this. Rather there are a number of reasons to believe that this may very well not be the case.”
Chiefly, she said, that’s because “we weren’t seriously looking for cases in the US.”
“If you had mild infection, you were not tested,” Nuzzo said. “If you had viral pneumonia not requiring oxygen but had not been to Wuhan, you wouldn’t have been tested.”
“Prior to the US travel restrictions, China began suspending outbound flights,” Nuzzo said. “Airlines also began canceling flights due to low travel volume. Then, the US implemented travel restrictions, which further reduced travel from China. The exception was Americans who were returning home from China. These folks were subject to quarantine upon return. A number of cases were found among these individuals. If you only test travelers from China and you greatly reduce the number of travelers coming from China, then you would be likely to not find many cases.
“But it doesn’t mean the virus hadn’t entered the US prior to travel restrictions,” Nuzzo said, as data now suggests occurred in Washington state.
Also, she said other countries, including Japan, Singapore and Korea, had a significant number of coronavirus cases, but they weren’t subject to travel restrictions. The U.S. “would likely not have picked it up” if travelers coming to the U.S. from those countries “because we weren’t using these other countries as criteria for testing.”
A modeling study published in Science magazine on March 6, “The effect of travel restrictions on the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak,” concluded that, “In areas affected by the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19), travel restrictions will only modestly impact the spread of the outbreak,” according to a press release for the study.
“Based on the study’s results, the authors say the greatest benefit to mitigating the epidemic will come from public health interventions and behavioral changes that achieve a considerable reduction in the disease transmissibility – factors like early detection, isolation, and handwashing,” according to the press release.
The authors concluded that travel restrictions introduced by the Chinese government in Wuhan in Jan. 23 and the halting of airline flights to and from China starting in early February at first slowed the spread of the disease to the rest of the world. Even still, a large number of individuals exposed to the virus had been traveling internationally without being detected and, the authors note, the number of imported cases around the world went up in a matter of weeks.
“Moving forward we expect that travel restrictions to COVID-19 affected areas will have modest effects, and that transmission-reduction interventions will provide the greatest benefit to mitigate the epidemic,” the authors wrote.
Facts seem to show...…..what most....to include the world......we are being killed by an inept idiot
Actually, that's exactly what we let happen in the last three years. Zero dollars to help predict and prevent international pandemics. I'd rather have that ownership and utilize that expertise and intelligence for ourselves. There is no other organization like it. We/the world is better with it.
nah, he's got seven months, then the scariest two months after that. A lame duck tRump may do anything.
- Status
