Over the weekend the Biden Administration announced a travel ban from India as Wuhan coronavirus cases and deaths in the country spiral out of control.
This does not apply to American citizens, and travel restrictions (like a negative Covid test before getting on the plane) are still in place. It also doesn’t apply to humanitarian workers.
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) April 30, 2021
But when President Trump implemented a travel ban from China in January 2020 to mitigate the spread of the disease from where it first started, he was berated by the media and Democrats as "xenophobic" and racist. At the time, Trump was heavily criticized by then former Vice President Joe Biden.
"The national emergency and worldwide alerts. The American people need to have a president who they can trust what he says about it. That he is going to act rationally about it. In moments like this, this is where the credibility of a president is most needed, as he explains what we should and should not do. This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysterical xenophobia and fear mongering to lead the way instead of science," Biden said during a campaign stop about the China travel ban.
Further, Biden called travel bans "reactionary."
"I remember how Trump sought to stoke fear and stigma during the 2014 Ebola epidemic. He called President Barack Obama a 'dope' and 'incompetent' and railed against the evidence-based response our administration put in place — which quelled the crisis and saved hundreds of thousands of lives — in favor of reactionary travel bans that would only have made things worse," Biden wrote in an op-ed for USA Today.
A wall will not stop the coronavirus.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) March 13, 2020
Banning all travel from Europe — or any other part of the world — will not stop it.
This disease could impact every nation and any person on the planet — and we need a plan to combat it.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was so outraged by the ban, she took a trip to San Francisco's Chinatown and encouraged Americans to keep living their normal lives.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi toured San Francisco's Chinatown Monday to send a message. She said there's no reason tourists or locals should be staying away from the area because of coronavirus concerns.
"That’s what we’re trying to do today is to say everything is fine here," Pelosi said. "Come because precautions have been taken. The city is on top of the situation."
Not surprisingly, Biden's ban has received little attention.