The President of the United States, President Donald Trump has announced a travel ban from Europe to the United States for 30-days as he responds to mounting pressure to take action against a rapidly spreading coronavirus outbreak.
Trump says the travel ban will start from Friday at midnight ET, but he says the United Kingdom will be exempt from the ban.
Other exemptions, Trump says, will be made for Americans who have been screened for the virus.
Trump also announced a series of other measures to combat the rapid spread of coronavirus including $8.3 billion in funding for the Center for Disease Control
Donald Trump in a state of the nation address, where he announced the travel ban though to the coronavirus that has been labelled global pandemic by the World Health Organisation, said:
“We are marshalling the full power of the federal government and the private sector to protect the American people,” Trump said in a prime-time televised address from the Oval Office on Wednesday.
“This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history.”
After triggering confusion by suggesting trade with Europe would also be suspended, Trump clarified that “trade will in no way be affected.”
“The restriction stops people not goods,” he said on Twitter moments after his speech.
The travel ban does not apply to all of Europe. It only applies to those in the Schengen zone: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
Those exemptions include all US legal permanent residents, citizens and some of their family members, according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security
