March 12, 2020

expert reaction to Trump suspending travel to US from 26 countries in the Schengen border-free travel area of Europe

President Donald Trump has announced the suspension of all flights to Europe, with the exception of the UK.

Dr Michael Head, Senior Research Fellow in Global Health, University of Southampton, said:

“The recently-announced USA travel ban allows US citizens in Europe to return home, but prohibits non-US citizens coming from the Schengen zone to enter the country.  Globally, the national and international response to the outbreak is complex, covering public health, social, economic and political issues.  Over recent weeks, statements from the US political leadership appears, from a distance, to have been inconsistent and occasionally at odds with their own public health recommendations.  These differences will not be helpful in supporting their national and state-level response to COVID-19.  Any new intervention, such as a lockdown or travel ban, should be guided by the best possible evidence, and currently, the reasoning behind this new restriction is unclear.”

Prof Paul Hunter, Professor in Medicine, UEA, said:

“It is uncertain what the US intends to achieve with the recently announced travel ban to the Schengen area of Europe.  Many of us have been pointing out since the COVID-19 epidemic began that travel bans have a poor record on preventing the spread of epidemic diseases.  At best travel bans only delay the spread of an epidemic by a short while.  The paper published on the 6th March in Science by Chinazzi and colleagues from the US, China and Italy provided further evidence of this opinion and showed that the travel ban in China only delayed the spread internally by 3 to 5 days.  Chinazzi also showed that international travel bans are only modestly effective at controlling international spread for a while.

“Introducing an international travel ban at a time when the US is now one of the countries with the most rapidly accelerating internal transmission rates will do little if anything to reduce the burden of infection within the US.”

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:

http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

The SMC also produced a Factsheet on COVID-19 which is available here:

https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/smc-novel-coronavirus-factsheet/

Declared interests

None received.