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COVID-19

Coronavirus: What you need to know about Trump’s Europe travel ban

US President Donald Trump has announced a travel ban from most European countries in response to the coronavirus spread.

Published: 12 March 2020 07:50 CET
Updated: 12 March 2020 10:23 CET
Coronavirus: What you need to know about Trump's Europe travel ban
Donald Trump announces his Europe travel ban. AFP

The ban, which does not include the UK or Ireland, will begin at 11.59pm on Friday, March 13th and last for 30 days. It will include all countries in Europe's Schengen area.

That means all foreign nationals, unless they are exempt from the ban (see below) won't be allowed to board planes for the US from Schengen countries while the ban is in place.

The restrictions do not apply to permanent residents in the US who need to get home to the US or their close family members, although it is possible that airlines may cancel flights in the days ahead as passenger numbers fall.

The countries in the Schengen area are: 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.

Trump blamed EU countries for not acting quickly enough to stem the spread of the “foreign virus”. The president had previously banned travel from China when the virus was spreading rapidly through the country.

“The European Union failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from China and other hotspots. As a result a large number of new clusters in the United States were seeded by travellers from Europe.”

At least 1,257 people in 44 states and Washington, DC have tested positive for coronavirus, according to the latest figures from the New York Times database. At least 37 patients with the virus have died.

In Europe the number of cases has passed the 22,000 mark with 930 deaths.

Trump said: “In total, as of March 9th, 2020, the Schengen Area has exported 201 COVID-19 cases to 53 countries. Moreover, the free flow of people between the Schengen Area countries makes the task of managing the spread of the virus difficult.”

What we know about who is affected by the ban and who isn't

It affects most foreign nationals who have been in Schengen area countries for 14 days before the ban comes into place at 11.59pm Friday March 13th.

It won't affect flights that depart before then but are due to land in the US after that time.

“I have determined that it is in the interests of the United States to take action to restrict and suspend the entry into the United States, as immigrants or nonimmigrants, of all aliens who were physically present within the Schengen Area during the 14-day period preceding their entry or attempted entry into the United States,” reads the full text of the restrictions.

The restriction doesn't apply to travel from the UK or Ireland, but it was unclear how US authorities plan to deal with foreign nationals travelling from Europe to the US via those countries.

Permanent residents of the US are not affected by the ban as are certain family members such as their children. Children of US nationals or permanent residents will also be allowed entry.

Legal spouses of US citizens or permanent residents are also not affected as are parents of US citizens or permanent residents as long as their children are unmarried and under the age of 21.

Siblings of US citizens or permanent residents are also exempt, “provided that both are unmarried and under the age of 21.”

Other exceptions are made for foreign nationals including crew members on planes or boats, UN or Nato employees and those travelling on the invitation of the US government.

It also exempts “any alien whose entry would not pose a significant risk of introducing, transmitting, or spreading the virus, as determined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services”.

The US Department of Homeland Security has said that further guidance on the travel suspension will come within the next two days.

The declaration warns that: “An alien who circumvents the application of this proclamation through fraud, willful misrepresentation of a material fact, or illegal entry shall be a priority for removal by the Department of Homeland Security.“

How has Europe reacted?

So far reaction to Trump's ban has been muted but that may change throughout the day.

President of the European Council Charles Michel tweeted “we will assess the situation today.”

“Economic disruption must be avoided. Europe is taking all necessary measures to contain the spread of the COVID19 virus, limit the number of affected people and support research.”

The World Health Organisation has previously advised against closing borders and banning international travel.

 

Member comments

  1. The restriction doesn’t apply to travel from the UK, but it was unclear how US authorities plan to deal with foreign nationals travelling from Europe to the US via the UK. EXACTLY.
    Can we spell IRRESPONBIBLE?

  2. You need to have your passport associated to your ticket days in advance of your flight to USA. When we flew back to the USA from Sweden we went from Stockholm to Denmark, thru Danish passport kontrol then to the USA so the passport had multiple stamps plus RFID so they’d know when you board the plane with final destination to USA where you came from and would probably exclude you from boarding. In the airport you were screened and kept in a separate area so they knew who was cleared to go to the USA (and this was 2016 in Copenhagen). I would not call myself a big supporter of the president, but if everyone gets sick at once, health care will be overwhelmed. We are all going to get this eventually most likely, but by delaying transfer it’ll spread out the cases.

    I can remember days when one kid got chicken pox other parents sent their kid over so they’d get it too, this isn’t like that. You don’t want this and shouldn’t circulate it.

  3. So, apparently, the Virus was introduced to America by Foreigners visiting the USA? He must mean that, as U.S. Citizens can still fly Home from the E.U.
    I wonder what would have been his reaction if the E.U. had at the get-go stopped flights to the U.S.A. so therfore stopping any US Citizens flying Home!
    Hmmmm…

  5. The US citizens or permanent residents won’t Carry or spread the virus, how does Trump know this? It’s important to come home and be with families but being safe is the most important. So why ban only Schengen Zone residents?

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HISTORY

Why does Denmark have the world’s largest collection of brains?

Almost 10,000 preserved brains, collected over four decades in the 20th century, are still used today by researchers in Denmark.

Published: 17 March 2023 10:23 CET
Why does Denmark have the world's largest collection of brains?

Countless shelves line the walls of a basement at Denmark’s University of Southern Denmark in Odense, holding what is thought to be the world’s largest collection of brains.

There are 9,479 of the organs, all removed from the corpses of mental health patients over the course of four decades until the 1980s.

Preserved in formalin in large white buckets labelled with numbers, the collection was the life’s work of prominent Danish psychiatrist Erik Strömgren.

Begun in 1945, it was a “kind of experimental research,” Jesper Vaczy Kragh, an expert in the history of psychiatry, explained to AFP.

Strömgren and his colleagues believed “maybe they could find out something about where mental illnesses were localised, or they thought they might find
the answers in those brains”.

The brains were collected after autopsies had been conducted on the bodies of people committed to psychiatric institutes across Denmark.

Neither the deceased nor their families were ever asked permission.

“These were state mental hospitals and there were no people from the outside who were asking questions about what went on in these state
institutions,” he said.

At the time, patients’ rights were not a primary concern.

On the contrary, society believed it needed to be protected from these people, the researcher from the University of Copenhagen said.

Between 1929 and 1967, the law required people committed to mental institutions to be sterilised.

Up until 1989, they had to get a special exemption in order to be allowed to marry.

Denmark considered “mentally ill” people, as they were called at the time, “a burden to society (and believed that) if we let them have children, if we
let them loose… they will cause all kinds of trouble,” Vaczy Kragh said.

Back then, every Dane who died was autopsied, said pathologist Martin Wirenfeldt Nielsen, the director of the collection.

“It was just part of the culture back then, an autopsy was just another hospital procedure,” Nielsen said.

The evolution of post-mortem procedures and growing awareness of patients’ rights heralded the end of new additions to the collection in 1982.

A long and heated debate then ensued on what to do with it.

Denmark’s state ethics council ultimately ruled it should be preserved and used for scientific research.

An employee works on human brain fragments in the laboratory of the Bispebjerg hospital in Copenhagen. Photo: Sergei GAPON / AFP

Hidden secrets

The collection, long housed in Aarhus, was moved to Odense in 2018.

Research on the collection has over the years covered a wide range of illnesses, including dementia, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression.

“The debate has basically settled down, and (now people) say ‘okay, this is very impressive and useful scientific research if you want to know more about
mental disease’,” the collection’s director said.

Some of the brains belonged to people who suffered from both mental health issues and brain illnesses.

“Because many of these patients were admitted for maybe half their life, or even their entire life, they would also have had other brain diseases, such as
a stroke, epilepsy or brain tumours,” he added.

Four research projects are currently using the collection.

“If it’s not used, it does no good,” says the former head of the country’s mental health association, Knud Kristensen.

“Now we have it, we should actually use it,” he said, complaining about a lack of resources to fund research.

Neurobiologist Susana Aznar, a Parkinson’s expert working at a Copenhagen research hospital, is using the collection as part of her team’s research
project.

She said the brains were unique in that they enable scientists to see the effects of modern treatments.

“They were not treated with the treatments that we have now,” she said.

The brains of patients nowadays may have been altered by the treatments they have received.

When Aznar’s team compares these with the brains from the collection, “we can see whether these changes could be associated with the treatments,” she
said.

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