President Donald Trump says the US will suspend all travel from Europe, excluding Britain, starting on Friday for 30 days amid the coronavirus outbreak.
“To keep new cases from entering our shores, we will be suspending all travel from Europe to the United States for the next 30 days,” Mr Trump said in a televised address on Thursday (ADST).
“The new rules will go into effect Friday at midnight,” he added.
Mr Trump described the sweeping measures as “strong but necessary” to curb the COVID-19 outbreak.
He made the announcement in an Oval Office address to Americans, in which he blamed the European Union for not acting quickly enough to address the novel coronavirus and saying US clusters were “seeded” by European travellers.
Mr Trump said the ban won’t apply to Britain, the US would monitor the situation to determine if travel could be reopened earlier.
He said “we are marshalling the full power” of the government and private sector to protect the American people.
Tweet from @WhiteHouse
Mr Trump’s speech came as as Washington raced to confront a viral pandemic that is roiling global financial markets and disrupting the daily lives of Americans.
Communities across the US have cancelled public events, universities have halted in-person classes, and families are grappling with disruptions to public schools.
The US Congress, for its part, unveiled a multibillion-dollar aid package that was expected to be voted on by the House as soon as Thursday.
The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the US has topped 1000 in the US, as the World Health Organisation finally declared the global crisis a pandemic.
As US government officials warned the outbreak would only get worse, the Capitol was set to halt public tours as the shifting developments raised questions, urgency and a new level of unease.
“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 Disease, said in testimony before the House Oversight and Reform Committee.
He said the coronavirus was “10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu”.
-with AAP
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