"Trump’s ‘early’ travel ‘bans’ weren’t early, weren’t bans and didn’t work
Forty-five nations imposed travel restrictions on China before the United States did. The earliest of those restrictions went into effect Jan. 24, nine days before the U.S. travel ban went into effect on Feb. 2.
The U.S. travel restriction came a month after China first announced its outbreak and at a point when the United States and more than 20 other countries had already reported coronavirus cases. Several of those countries, including Germany and the United States, were already reporting local transmission of cases.
Between the first official report of an outbreak in China and the announcement of U.S. travel restrictions, more than 40,000 travelers from China were estimated to have entered the United States.
Scientists believe the virus likely emerged and began circulating a month or more before it was first recognized in China, which may have allowed it to spread beyond the countries where cases were initially recognized."
