The first action the U.S. government took to combat the spread of COVID-19 was a travel restriction on people who had been in China in the previous two weeks prior to their attempted entry. That order exempted people closely related to Americans on lesser visas, returning American tourists, and some others, but it “pretty much shut it down coming in from China,” as President Trump said.
Travel and immigration restrictions should be enacted if they halt or substantially diminish the spread of deadly and contagious diseases, but the only problem is that they aren’t effective. Travel and immigration restrictions likely did not delay the prevalence of COVID-19, delaying the disease’s spread by 15 days at most.
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