While the media and partisans criticize every aspect of President Trump’s handling of this current pandemic, we should applaud Trump’s clear success – his January “ban” on Chinese travel to the U.S., and later restrictions on travel from Europe.
These restrictions certainly slowed the spread of the Wuhan Coronavirus (COVID-19) but have been roundly criticized by many, including former Vice President Joe Biden, who has called Trump’s policies “xenophobic.” Biden said “Banning all travel from … any other part of the world — will not stop it.”
Biden is not alone. According to the House Foreign Affairs Committee website, Democratic Rep. Eliot L. Engel, stated at the February 5th “Wuhan Coronavirus” hearing, “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.”
Democratic Rep. Ami Bera also criticized Trump’s travel ban. He told Politico the decision to impose travel restrictions “probably doesn’t make sense” adding. “At this juncture, it’s going to be very hard to contain the virus.”
However, on ABC News “This Week“, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the National Institutes of Health, and now the chief medical advisor to the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force, said the Trump administration’s decision to restrict travel from China in January slowed the spread of the Wuhan Coronavirus in the United States.
The success of Trump’s rapid China travel restrictions has also been confirmed by the unfortunate case of Italy. Dr. Fauci said Thursday that Italy has been hit particularly hard by the coronavirus pandemic because the country hosted thousands of Chinese tourists in recent months.
“Before they even knew what was going on, there was enough baseline people spreading that it essentially got out of hand, and it became difficult for them, as good as they are, and they’re very good, to be able to contain it,” Dr. Fauci said on CNN.
The role of international travel, and the need to restrict it during the early stages of an outbreak, has now been reinforced by another unfortunate case – New York City, which Dr. Fauci notes is “getting hit terribly hard.” This is due in part to the fact that New York City is a travel hub that experiences an “influx of travelers,” Dr. Fauci said.
“New York City reported 100 new deaths from the coronavirus on Thursday, bringing the death toll to 385 as the number of infections topped 37,200,” according to Yahoo News.
All this data shows that international travel, especially from China initially, was critical to the Wuhan Virus’s rapid spread to certain countries and cities.
Had the Chinese Communist Party admitted it had a serious outbreak a few weeks earlier, rather than cover it up and allow five million Chinese travelers to leave Wuhan by January, as reported by Business Insider, the world may have been spared a pandemic.
Trump may not be doing everything “perfectly” in his handling of this crisis, but he was right to quickly restrict travel from China in January, and more recently from Europe. Border security saves lives.
Paul Crespo is a defense and national security expert. He served as a Marine Corps officer and as a military attaché with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) at US embassies worldwide. He holds degrees from Georgetown, London, and Cambridge Universities. Paul is also CEO of SPECTRE Global Risk, a security advisory firm, and a Contributor to American Defense News.
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Our President, Donald Trump is doing a great job in protecting us, the American citizens, from this Corona Virus—and we appreciate his actions—On the otherhand, Joe Biden, criticized part of Trump’s action—a part that is critical to our protection—even his—I realize Biden did this out of ignorence of the situation but when you don’t know enough to make an informed analization of a problem it is wise to keep your mouth shut—-Sorry Biden but you asked for that.
1. Knowing the Chinese, it is possible they were sending their SICK out into the world to spread the disease. That is why they were killing their doctors for publicizing the facts of the disease.
2. Democrats can only keep finding fault. So we are NOT facing what Italy is because of Trump. The nation should be made to know that. But the media will not give Trump credit for good. And yes, they DO lie a lot.
Absolutely no more chinese visitors posing as ‘immigrants’. Enough of this BS from the chinese. I live in San Francisco and have to deal with these ill mannered cretins everyday and see what they do and have done to this one time jewel of California and it’s disgusting.
We don’t need any more chinese so called ‘immigrants’, period! These disgusting pigs will become welfare cases and living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’ve seen what these cretins have done and continue doing and for the most part they’re the first ones in line pushing and shoving for all the freebies doled out by the liberals running this one time golden state that in many places is one huge open air toilet!
Exactly William, we already have more than the half of South America mooching off of us thanks to the democrat party.
When the homosexuals took control of San Fran, that is what made them into the toilet. The book of Romans condemns them. That is why they hate Christians We follow what God says.
Gee AD, The gays on San Francisco didn’t have anything to do with making San Francisco into the toilet it is today. Everyone here and elsewhere can thank the ‘progressives’or liberals with their laissez-faire attitude and policies of anything and everything goes’ did this years ago. Not all residents here like these conditions, homelessness crime, unaffordable housing crumbling infrastructure and don’t vote for this. California has pretty much gone into the toilet and the sad thing, jerry the ‘clown’ brown’s flunkee, ‘nasty’ nancy ‘pigliosi’s nephew gavin ‘giveaway the store for free’ newsom’s just doing what any liberal socialist would, continue the destruction with the attitude”F**K everyone else
Democrats don’t care how many people die as long as they can take power.
Bernie Guy your so right.. also where they have the largest amount of virus, if you notice they have Democratic Governors, Sanctuary city’s, and want open borders.. that tells me something.