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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Thursday said that President Donald Trump's temporary China travel ban did little to stop the spread of coronavirus in his state because that specific strain came from Europe.
In the early stages of America's battle with coronavirus, Trump announced a temporary travel ban on January 31 of flights from China to curb the spread of the novel virus. The outbreak was first identified in Wuhan, Hubei in December 2019 before it rapidly spread around the world. The president has repeatedly pointed to his restrictions on China, which took effect on February 2, as a sign of his early efforts to combat the pandemic.
Cuomo was asked whether he believed the travel ban enforced in late January made a difference to his state during CNN's global coronavirus town hall on Thursday. "It had already left China," the governor said. "The strain in New York came from Europe, it didn't come from China."
"Close the door on China?" he added. "The virus is already out... It's closing the barn door when the horse is gone."
While some Democrats called the China travel ban "racist," many health experts believed that it was an effective measure that bought the U.S. time to mitigate the outbreak. Prior to Trump's announcement in January, most major airlines had already suspended flights to China after the State Department issued an advisory warning Americans from travel to the Asian nation.
Despite the efforts, the U.S. became the first country to exceed 100,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in late March. As of April 23, more than 886,700 individuals had tested positive for coronavirus in the U.S, with over 50,200 deaths caused by the new disease and 85,900 recoveries.
Cuomo on Thursday said that America's leaders and medical experts were simply not prepared enough to tackle a global pandemic. "We've never actually lived through (a global pandemic)," he said. "So I don't think that this country was ready for it. I don't even think our experts were ready for it."
On further mitigation efforts, Cuomo insisted that the New York tri-state area will need "an army of tracers" to track and trace the virus' spread.
"A place like New York with so many, we have 250,000 people who tested positive, how do you begin to trace all those contacts where one person can immediately trace down to 10, 20 people?" the governor said. "You're going to need an army of tracers, literally thousands of people who do this."
Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment.
