Trump should have listened to the experts and NOT implemented Travel ban with China

Health experts warned that Trump's China travel ban will hinder coronavirus response.

--- "Mike Cernovich, a prominent conspiracy theorist and early Trump supporter, had agitated on Twitter for a Chinese travel ban, as has Michael Savage, another conspiracy theorist and a radio host with white nationalist beliefs. “QUARANTINE! STOP TRAVELERS FROM CHINA NOW!” he said on Twitter last week."

In other words conspiracy theorists and white nationalists wanted a travel ban.

--- Public health experts have warned that travel bans are not effective at stemming the spread of a virus and can make responding to an outbreak more challenging.
“From a public health perspective, there is limited effectiveness. And then there are a host of other reasons why they can actually be counterproductive,” said Catherine Worsnop, who studies international cooperation during global health emergencies at the University of Maryland.

--- The World Health Organization ... has recommended against any travel or trade restrictions in response to the outbreak.

--- Travel and trade restrictions can lead to dire economic consequences for countries involved, creating a disincentive for them to quickly disclose potential outbreaks to the WHO or other nations. They can hinder the sharing of information, make it harder to track cases and their contacts, and disrupt the medical supply chain, potentially fueling shortages of drugs and medical supplies in the areas hit hardest by the outbreak. They also send a punitive message, which could contribute to discrimination and stigmatization against Chinese nationals, experts warned.

SOURCE
https://www.statnews.com/2020/01/31/as-far-right-calls-for-china-travel-ban-health-experts-warn-coronavirus-response-would-suffer/

---- The evidence on travel bans for diseases like coronavirus is clear: They don’t work
They’re political theater, not good public health policy.

---- But it would be one thing if there were strong evidence that travel bans work to stop the spread of the disease. Instead, “Travel restrictions can cause more harm than good by hindering info-sharing, medical supply chains and harming economies,” said the World Health Organization director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

---- “These types of measures have been shown to be ineffective at halting the spread of the viruses,” said Adam Kamradt-Scott, a professor in global health at the University of Sydney who studies global health security.

SOURCE:
https://www.vox.com/2020/1/23/21078325/wuhan-china-coronavirus-travel-ban

---- The Trump Administration Just Declared Coronavirus A Public Health Emergency In The US
"We still have a low risk to the American public. But we want to keep it at a low risk," said NIAID Director Anthony Fauc

---- And on Thursday, the World Health Organization had declared the outbreak a global health emergency but said that move was intended to steer medical screening assistance to smaller nations, not to trigger travel restrictions.

---- The Trump administration's new travel restrictions and quarantine efforts have led some experts to criticize the measures as an overreach. "This is exactly what WHO warned against," said global health law expert Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown University.
Gostin said the move to quarantine travelers coming from Hubei Province was reasonable, given case numbers there, but that the requirement should have been for voluntary home isolation instead of mandatory detention. And barring foreign travelers from China, along with making US citizens self-quarantine at home, he said, likely violated civil rights laws, without leading to any real lowered risk of a US outbreak.
"We are slipping from overconfidence into panic and overreaction," said Gostin.
Amesh Adalja of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, speaking for the Infectious Disease Society of America, said that "decades" of research show that travel bans are actually counterproductive in derailing outbreaks. They lead to difficulties getting resources to outbreak centers, bankruptcy, and economic hardship there, and cause stigma for residents from the affected areas.
"It's kind of frustrating that we always have these kind of discussions during every outbreak, no matter how many experts explain why it causes negative consequences," Adalja said. "I think it is a bad turn of events."

SOURCE:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/danvergano/cdc-public-health-emergency-travel

But the IHR is the legally binding system for protecting people worldwide from the global spread of disease. With more than 2·5 billion people travelling between about 4000 airports every year,15 future outbreaks are inevitable. Responses that are anchored in fear, misinformation, racism, and xenophobia will not save us from outbreaks like COVID-19. Upholding the rule of international law is needed now more than ever. Countries can start by rolling back illegal travel restrictions that have already been implemented and by supporting WHO and each other in implementing the IHR.

SOURCE:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30373-1/fulltext

The Trump Administration Just Declared Coronavirus A Public Health Emergency In The US BuzzFeed News

The evidence on travel bans for diseases like coronavirus is clear: They don't work Vox

Health experts warn China travel ban would hinder coronavirus response STAT