White House Widens European Travel Ban To Include U.K., Ireland
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Vice President Mike Pence announced Saturday that the U.S. would be expanding its preventive travel ban to the United Kingdom and Ireland effective at “midnight Monday night.”
A ban on foreign travelers coming from the European Union went into effect late Friday after a hasty and chaotic implementation meant to help authorities contain the spread of the coronavirus.
American citizens are not subject to the controversial bans. Pence, who is heading up the administration’s coronavirus efforts, said Saturday that Americans who had visited areas affected by the virus are “encouraged” to self-quarantine for 14 days upon their return.
Moments before, President Donald Trump told reporters that he was considering domestic travel restrictions but did not offer additional details. Pence later reiterated that the administration was considering a wide range of domestic options. Public health officials have repeatedly stressed that social distancing is crucial to helping prevent the health care system from being overloaded.
The coronavirus is already a grave public health danger in the U.S., with thousands of people infected and dozens of deaths ― and the numbers are only going to increase as the virus spreads through communities. But at this point a travel ban does nothing to address the primary problem: a catastrophic lack of available testing.
Both the president and vice president have made varying claims about the availability of tests; Trump claimed Friday that a million tests would be available by “early next week.”
Late Friday night, White House and congressional leadership finally came to an agreement on a coronavirus relief bill to deal with the testing gap and some of the financial fallout many American families are facing amid the crisis.
Both Trump and Pence praised the coronavirus relief deal on Saturday, signaling they expected it to pass the Senate next...
