In the face of a rapidly expanding global coronavirus pandemic that has already killed dozens and infected at least 1,200 within the United States, President Donald Trump delivered a strange Oval Office speech Wednesday in which he focused on banning travel from Europe, said nothing about the lack of available testing across the country, and ignored many crucial aspects of the public health crisis.
The president said he would ban noncitizens from traveling to the United States from Europe for 30 days amid the ongoing outbreak of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus now declared a pandemic. The ban will apply to anyone in the European Union’s 26-country Schengen Area and those who have traveled there in the past 14 days. It begins Friday.
