Expert demolishes Trump's plan to fight coronavirus with travel bans

On CNN Thursday, national security analyst Lisa Monaco emphatically stated that President Donald Trump's European travel ban will not work to contain coronavirus.

"It was confusing last night, in fact the president said basically all travel from Europe and then DHS had to clarify that it wasn't meant to be Americans returning home ... we just had the vice president on, there is going to be a two-week self-quarantine for people — Americans coming back," said anchor Alisyn Camerota. "Is this effective? Is this the best thing they can do right now to contain this virus?"

"It is not the best thing they can do right now to contain this virus," said Monaco, who also serves on former Vice President Joe Biden's coronavirus preparation team. "Look, travel restrictions may slow the pace of this spread here. But the reality is that the disease is here. It is already here. And it is expanding exponentially from what we have seen thus far, but we have only looked at the tip of the iceberg. Two weeks ago, there were 15 cases in this country. One week ago there was a little over 100 cases in this country. Today, you're reporting over 1200 cases ... that's based on just a small level of testing that we have done. So I don't think the travel restrictions are the panacea here, nor is labeling it a foreign virus."

"What we need to be hearing about is what are we doing to protect healthcare workers in this country?" continued Monaco. "They're the front line of defense, they're the first responders, the firefighters for this burning house here. What are we doing to provide expanded hospital capacity? We have a wave of cases coming at the health care system in this country, what are we doing to prepare for that? We're not going to be able to outrun that wave. And what are we doing to provide more widespread and free testing? That's the way we're going to understand what's going on here and that's the way we're going to help protect people in this country. So no, I don't think travel restrictions are the answer here."

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