As Trump Stumbles on Coronavirus, Health Experts Warn Against Border Closures

[BeckyDem]

Nick Turse

March 5 2020, 1:40 p.m.

While he lacks expertise in any relevant field, President Donald Trump has never shied away from making pronouncements about fighting infectious diseases. “KEEP THEM OUT OF HERE!” Trump tweet-bellowed about American health care workers in West Africa who were infected with the Ebola virus in 2015, calling for harsh border controls to bar travelers from any “EBOLA infected countries.”

As the world grapples with the spread of a new coronavirus known as Covid-19, Trump still seems to hold similar beliefs on borders. He flirted in the past week with suggestions for border restrictions that would probably do more harm than good. But experts warn that some draconian public health interventions — such as completely closing borders — can quickly become counterproductive. Once a disease has taken hold inside a country, the best options are domestic interventions by state and local public health authorities with ample support from the federal level.

“I hope President Trump is not thinking about shutting down the borders completely, because then you really do have a situation in which we can’t help other nations and the disease will nonetheless be here,” said Amy Fairchild, an ethicist, public health historian, and dean of the Ohio State University College of Public Health. “We will only end up creating vulnerable, underserved populations in this country, and we’ll exacerbate the challenges of providing aid to African and Asian countries that have more fragile health care systems.”


Last Friday, Trump mentioned the possibility of closing the U.S. border with Mexico. “We are looking also at southern border,” he said. “We have received a lot of power on the southern border over the last couple of years from the courts. But we are looking at that very strongly.” This idea — which probably has more to do with furthering Trump’s anti-immigration agenda than fighting an infectious disease — has been echoed by conservative pundits who have the president’s ear.

https://theintercept.com/2020/03/05/coronavirus-trump-closing-borders/

NEVER TRUMP 2020

[dewsgirl]

1. Uhh it's going to be getting to the point where other nations

will be banning us, I believe it's already began.

[BeckyDem]

2. I can't say enough how much I worry the way Trump will handle this. Especially

as the election cycle heats up. But you are right, the reaction across the globe is varied.

The world has officially entered pandemic panic mode, with countries resorting to unprecedented measures to stop the spread of the new coronavirus. France has shut down the Louvre, Macau has closed its casinos, and the NBA is shutting down high-fiving fans. In my country, Australia, the government is attempting to shut down the toilet paper hoarding, which has reached ridiculous levels, with knives being pulled in Sydney supermarkets.

Other countries are going further by shutting down borders—something sovereign nations are allowed to do in response to public health threats under the International Health Regulations.

As news of the virus first began to spread, many countries put in place bans preventing those who had recently been in China from entering their borders. But the list of places that nations have sought to prevent people traveling from has expanded as the virus itself has spread. A constantly updating list on the International Air Transport Association website tracks the travel restrictions each country currently has in place, showing the state of disarray global transit is in. A growing number of countries won’t let you in if you’ve been in Italy, Iran, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, or Japan in the past two weeks. The U.S. is currently banning foreigners who have been in China or Iran in the past 14 days (Trump having walked back suggestions that the coronavirus called for a Mexico border shutdown), but those within the U.S. are themselves personae non gratae in a number of other, unaffected countries, particularly in Pacific island nations, such as Samoa or the Solomon Islands. But there’s one country in the region taking this strategy further than any other: the Federated States of Micronesia.

https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/micronesia-drastic-coronavirus-travel-ban.html

[Turbineguy]

3. Cut taxes on the rich.

The republican version of the universal antidote.

[tanyev]

4. Pretty sure at this point that's slamming the barn door after all the horses got out.