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.”
@Background Human
Yes and you prefer what? That Biden had some level of authority instead? Or perhaps Obama? That worked great back in the days of H1N1, in which it was said the US did every single thing possible incorrectly. Thank God it wasn’t Rona back then I suppose.
@Dustcan
When dealing with the fact that the nation that allowed the virus to spread lied for weeks if not months, cases being in the US before an official ban was inevitable. So yes. Better late than never.
Last I checked, Trump was shutting down travel from China at the same time Joe was calling him a racist and a fear-mongering idiot because he was taking the virus seriously.
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