The US will ban travel from Europe over coronavirus fears

President Donald Trump has announced that travel from Europe to the US will be suspended as the coronavirus continues to spread.

President Donald Trump has announced the US will ban travel from Europe as cases of the coronavirus continue to rise.

Trump made the announcement in during an Oval Office address to the nation over the coronavirus threat.

“To keep new cases from entering our shores we will be suspending all travel from Europe to the United States for the next 30 days,” he said.

Homeland Security officials later clarified that the restrictions would apply only to travellers who have been in the 26-nation Schengen area of Europe within the last two weeks.

These areas include Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

The travel restrictions will kick in at midnight on Friday.

Trump said “we are marshalling the full power” of the government and private sector to protect the American people.

He said the new travel restrictions were “strong but necessary”, calling the COVID-19 virus a “horrible infection”.

President Donald Trump speaks in an addresses to the nation from the Oval Office at the White House about the coronavirus. Picture: Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP

The President praised the nation’s “unprecedented response” to the outbreak, while also blaming the European Union for failing to take early action against the virus.

“Taking early intense action, we have seen dramatically fewer cases of the virus in the United States than are now present in Europe,” he said.

“The European Union failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from China and other hot spots.

“As a result, a large number of new clusters in the United States were seeded by travellers from Europe.”

The ban will also apply to trade and cargo that come from Europe, with Trump saying various other things will be restricted as they “get approval”.

The number of confirmed cases of the infection topped 1000 in the US, with officials warning the outbreak is only going to get worse.

Trump said he was also directing agencies to provide unspecified financial relief “for workers who are ill, quarantined or caring for others due to coronavirus,” and asked Congress to take action to extend it.

Trump said the US will defer tax payments for some individual and business filers for three months to lessen the impacts of the virus outbreak.

He said the Small Business Administration will also make low-interest loans available to businesses to help them weather the storm.

“This is not a financial crisis,” he said.

“This just a temporary moment of time that we will overcome together as a nation and as a world.”

Trump also reiterated his call on Congress to pass a cut to the federal payroll tax in order to stimulate the economy.

A cleaning crew exits the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Washington. Most of the coronavirus deaths in Washington State have been linked to the nursing home. Picture: John Moore/Getty Images/AFP

His announcement came after the World Health Organisation (WHO) officially declared the coronavirus a pandemic, after previously being resistant to using the label.

“We have called every day for countries to take urgent and aggressive action. We have rung the alarm bell loud and clear,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO chief.

“All countries can still change the course of this pandemic. If countries detect, test, treat, isolate, trace and mobilise their people in the response,” he said.

“We are deeply concerned by the alarming levels of spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction.”

Dr Tedros said the WHO does not use the word pandemic lightly as it has the power to “cause unreasonable fear, or unjustified acceptance that the fight is over, leading to unnecessary suffering and death.”

“Describing the situation as a pandemic does not change WHO’s assessment of the threat posed by this virus. It doesn’t change what WHO is doing, and it doesn’t change what countries should do,” he said.

“We have never before seen a pandemic sparked by a coronavirus. This is the first pandemic caused by a coronavirus.”

According to the WHO, people with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may take three to six weeks to recover.

There are now more than 126,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus globally, which has resulted in 4630 deaths.

With AP