America Ban International Flights Due To Coronavirus
Nervous Americans overseas now scrambling to get back home holed up in this hotel this morning Californians China barrett and ethan smith fled portugal now on hold with their airline so far they've spent $11000 extra and made multiple calls to united yesterday they waited for hours and still couldn't get through they record off-guard by president Trump's surprise travel ban my mom actually texted me and she basically said you need to get home ASAP because we don't know if this is gonna affect you directly or not the announcement causing confusion and widespread travel chaos Jay Harrison is from Atlanta we are nervous that we're going to be able to get back in to the country Bo Leopoldo and Amanda Mitchell from California we land and we get bombarded with messages from our families telling us Trump announced this and you can't come back and the end of the world and all that good stuff so in fact the president's 29 to 30 day ban only targets European citizens from 25 countries but fears over flights and the future fuelling Americans to get back quickly the move condemned by Europe's leaders and undermined by the World Health Organization who said banning air travel is not an effective way to stop a virus from spreading the US administration sending mixed messages vice president pence stating that all Americans can fly home from Europe regardless of their condition they'll go through a process will ask them to self quarantine but but they can all come home president Trump appearing to contradict that just hours later said if an American's coming back or anybody's coming back we're testing we have a tremendous testing set up we're not putting them on planes if they're if it shows positive for Americans three vacations in Europe becoming a nightmare invested a lot thousands of dollars we definitely lost a few thousand China and Ethan feel abandoned I mean we were hoping that you know the government would take more concern about this I airlines would make more of an effort there's no knowing okay so if we do get back to the US then what happens how do we go into quarantine because we've been traveling around Europe do we go home a lot of confusion in the word of the day anxiety care I mean Americans are exempted from these rules people in the UK are exempted from these rules but you're still seeing people race to the airports just afraid of what might be the next rule to come hey Savannah that's right and you can hear another plane just taking off behind me here just underscoring the fact that these planes are still flying and you're you're right I think it's important to just reassure families who have loved ones here in Europe that there is not a ban on American citizens getting back to the United States this 29 to 30-day ban only applies to European citizens but you know Savannah the very fact that had to say that just underscores what Americans have been telling me which is that it's hard enough to face the fear of the coronavirus it makes it worse when you feel confused and you feel like you're not getting support I do want to tell you by the way Savannah that we did reach out to United Airlines they have just come back to us they want to reassure people that they are not stranding people but they are flooded with calls and they're asking their customers to have patience all right