White House is ‘close to listing travel ban on people from Europe’
White House is ‘close to lifting eight-month European travel ban’ to save the airline industry because America’s COVID problem is so much worse than anywhere else – but will anyone want to come?
- The Trump administration is considering lifting the ban on travelers from Europe
- Sources tell Reuters the WH coronavirus task force is supporting a plan to lift it
- They did not indicate how soon it could be alleviated or if Trump has agreed
- The US has the worst COVID problem of anywhere in the world and the ban on travel is crippling the airline industry
- The infection rate in the US is around 0.05% compared to 0.01% in the UK
- Officials say it therefore no longer makes sense to stop some people from traveling to the US if they want to
- Iran and China, which are also on Trump’s list of banned countries, will still be banned if the European restrictions are softened, sources say
- Likewise Americans are still banned from traveling directly to much of Europe
- America’s COVID problem is five times as bad as the problem in the UK
- The Heathrow to JFK airline route is the most lucrative in the world but has been grounded now for eight months
The White House is said to be close to lifting its eight month travel ban on people from Europe because its own COVID-19 problem is so much worse, sources have told Reuters.
In March, Trump issued a ban on non-US citizens traveling from the European Schengen area – which is most of mainland Europe – along with people from Iran and China. Two days later, he applied it to the UK and Ireland.
Now, the White House coronavirus task force is backing a plan to lift the European restrictions, arguing that the infection rates there are no worse than in other countries around the world and that it could boost airline business. The plan does not include lifting restrictions on Iran or China and one major stumbling block is that it won’t be reciprocal.
On Tuesday, there were 172,935 new cases in the US out of roughly 330million people which gives an infection rate of around 0.05 percent.
The UK’s problem, for example, is a fifth of the size: on Tuesday, there were 11,299 new cases out of a population of around 66.5million, which gives an infection rate of 0.01 percent.
The US has by far the worst COVID problem of anywhere in the world, followed by India, Brazil and Russia. The Trump administration is now considering lifting travel restrictions from Europe as a result but Americans are still banned from going straight from the US to Europe
Business links between the US and the UK are among the strongest in the world and are particularly important in the airline industry.
The JFK-Heathrow flight, for example, is the most lucrative in the world and before the pandemic, operated dozens of times a day across multiple airlines.
Other European countries also pale in comparison to America when it comes to the crisis.
The US has the highest number of COVID cases per capita of anywhere in the world, followed by India, Brazil and Russia.
The national average test positivity rate in the US is 9.6 percent but in some states, it is as high as 40 percent.
Tuesday marked the country’s deadliest day since March, with more than 2,100 people dying from the virus.
Nine states, including North Dakota, Ohio, Washington, Missouri, Wisconsin, Oregon, and Maine reported record numbers of deaths yesterday.
Health officials have been warning for weeks that deaths, which are a lagging indicator, would increase after the number of cases and hospitalizations started surging in late September.
Thanksgiving is only adding to the problem.
Millions of people are traveling to family gatherings, despite official advice.
There is hope of a vaccine in 2021 but the problem will escalate before it becomes widely available, with another 40,000 deaths on the horizon before people are vaccinated.
Despite it being the worst in the world, there has been a ban in place since March on travelers from 26 European countries, the UK, Ireland, Iran and China.
They 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.
US citizens and some exempted visas have been able to enter the US from those countries but others have had to stay put or circumvent it by traveling through a non-restricted country.
Equally, foreign visa holders living in the US have been unable to leave the country for fear of not being able to return.
Iran is currently fifteenth in the world with its COVID crisis whereas France, Spain and the UK are 5th, 6th and 7th.
China, according to the data it has released which has been met with great skepticism, is 68th.
Both China and Iran, unlike Europe, are political enemies of the Trump administration and airline travel between the two countries and the US is not as prevalent as it is with Europe.
Trump on March 11, implementing the travel ban which brought international business to a complete standstill and crippled the airline industry. European countries quickly reciprocated
An empty American Airlines terminal in April this year after Trump banned travel from most European countries. The London to New York route is the most lucrative route for most airlines in the world but it has been crippled by the ban
