PoliticoCoronavirus: US State Department warns Americans, don’t travel abroad, come home if overseas

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Dan Diamond, Nahal Toosi and Sam Mintz on politico.com on March 19, 2020. The US State Department on Thursday issued an extraordinary advisory urging Americans not to travel overseas, to return to the United States if they can, or to otherwise shelter in place, a move that comes amid concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. The Level 4 travel advisory for all international travel appears to be unprecedented and is the most severe such warning issued by the department. POLITICO first reported the plans for the announcement earlier on Thursday. Numerous US citizens are already stuck in limbo abroad, and the new guidance threatens to create further anxiety and confusion among travellers. US lawmakers and others have raised questions about the State Department’s ability to aid Americans overseas, but in the new guidance, the department makes clear that US citizens should not count on it to help. “Have a travel plan that does not rely on the US government for assistance,” the travel advisory tells Americans who decide to go overseas or are already there. According to several people familiar with the situation, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo approved raising the advisory from its previous status of Level 3. That earlier advisory merely encouraged Americans to reconsider travel abroad. Coronavirus infects faster, lasts longer than Sars, raising containment fears The State Department press office did not respond to requests for comment, but announced on Thursday that US passport agencies will accept applications only from customers with life-or-death emergencies who plan to travel within 72 hours. Several current and former US diplomats, some of them with several decades of experience, said they do not recall such a travel advisory ever being issued in the past. The highly unusual guidance came after seven weeks of steadily increasing restrictions on US travel, following President Donald Trump's move to limit travel from China at the end of January. Other countries have closed their borders and imposed further travel restrictions as the virus has spread beyond Asia to Europe and the Western Hemisphere. There are more than 10,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States, across all 50 states. The World Health Organisation on Thursday said that there are more than 191,000 confirmed cases across more than 150 countries; an unofficial tally by researchers at Johns Hopkins University pegs that number still higher. A State Department official based overseas expressed concern about the pending advisory, saying he worried it would cause panic among Americans. The official pointed out the difficulties of finding flights under the current conditions. Likely thousands of Americans remain stranded abroad, caught between travel bans and massive airline flight cancellations. Some Americans are stranded in countries such as Guatemala, which has issued a ban on any flights coming or going, and others are having to pay dearly for what flights are left, often transiting through several countries before finding a way back home. And the State Department has largely been absent, according to interviews with several Americans stranded abroad, who reported receiving no help from US embassies. Grim toll as Italy’s coronavirus death toll surpasses China’s Stephanie Marlin was in Guatemala City visiting a friend when the Guatemalan government closed down its borders, a day before her flight was expected to take her back to Nashville. She said she had communicated multiple times with Delta Air Lines about her flight, which was supposed to leave on Tuesday. Delta assured her that she was “gold” and that her flight would leave as planned. “I really blame the airlines because I could have left earlier and would have left earlier,” Marlin said. The US government has not been much help either. In her first attempts to reach the embassy there, Marlin said she repeatedly got an emailed form response which offered no actionable help. When she called an emergency number, it simply played a recording with the same information. It was not until she had a friend get in touch with the office of her member of Congress, Jim Cooper, that she was able to speak to a human at the embassy. But even then, the embassy employee said they were powerless to do anything given Guatemala’s border shut down. Members of Congress said they are trying to handle pleas for help from constituents and have been pushing the State Department to figure out how to get Americans home. Senator Bob Menendez, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led a letter from nine Democrats on Wednesday asking the State Department to step up its efforts to help those stuck abroad. “We seek an immediate clarification regarding your current efforts to facilitate the return of Americans to the United States, whether by commercial airline flights, charter flights, or other means,” the letter reads. Coronavirus: Go home Vancouver. Social distancing is not a party Virginia Senator Mark Warner also reached out to Pompeo on Wednesday, saying he had heard from “an alarming number of Virginians” unable to return home. His spokesperson, Nelly Decker, said that the Virginia Democrat’s office was assisting upwards of 20 Virginians around the world “with the number growing almost hourly”. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/19/coronavirus-travel-advisory-level-four-137227 Purchase the China AI Report 2020 brought to you by SCMP Research and enjoy a 20% discount (original price US$400). This 60-page all new intelligence report gives you first-hand insights and analysis into the latest industry developments and intelligence about China AI. Get exclusive access to our webinars for continuous learning, and interact with China AI executives in live Q&A. Offer valid until 31 March 2020.