1. The US wasn& #39;t early

45 other countries implemented travel restrictions against China before US did on Feb. 2

At that point, US & 20+ other countries had already reported #COVID19 cases. Several were even reporting local transmission of cases 2/ https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/travel-restrictions-china-due-covid-19">https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/t...
The measure that Trump administration implemented on Feb. 2 cannot be described as a “ban" that "closed the country" 4/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/10/01/debate-early-travel-bans-china/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2...
When Trump admin. expanded travel restrictions to Iran on 2/28 & to Europe on 3/12, it was too late

The US was approaching 2,000 cases, most likely a severe undercount

Chaotic implementation of ban on EU probably did more to spread virus than stop it 6/ https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/15/air-passengers-crush-coronavirus-trump-130251">https://www.politico.com/news/2020...
..those delays were more useful in nations such as New Zealand, Australia & Taiwan that used opportunity to expand testing, contact tracing and other aggressive measures to control spread of virus

The United States did not do so 8/
In the past, @WHO has warned that travel bans are risky b/c give nations “a false impression of control” — a misperception that a ban would stop spread of disease

The experience of United States and others in this pandemic suggests WHO had a point 10/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/10/01/debate-early-travel-bans-china/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2...
By March 25, 136 nations had imposed travel restrictions in this pandemic

Few were carefully designed and targeted, or adopted as part of a comprehensive response to #COVID19 pandemic 11/

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200327-sitrep-67-covid-19.pdf">https://www.who.int/docs/defa...
In 2005, the International Health Regulations were revised to stop broad, unscientific use of travel bans

The reason? To make us safer

In past, nations hid outbreaks out of concern other nations would impose unnecessarily tough trade & travel restrictions against them 12/
Now that system is broken.

We need stricter rules on travel bans or a system of outbreak detection that doesn& #39;t depend on nations self-reporting

Both goals require global leadership.

Leadership that a US President should provide 13/13
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