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The Facts on Trump’s Travel Restrictions
By Robert Farley
Posted on March 6, 2020
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.
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/the-facts-o...trictions/
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.
The Facts on Trump’s Travel Restrictions
By Robert Farley
Posted on March 6, 2020
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.
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/the-facts-o...trictions/
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.
