Reason UK is exempt from US travel ban ​

US President chas made one of the most dramatic actions of any country in attempting to hold back the coronavirus tide – bar Italy quarantining itself – by suspending all travel from Europe for the next month.

Trump made the announcement during an Oval Office address to the nation on Wednesday evening (US time) over the coronavirus threat.

“To keep new cases from entering our shores we will be suspending all travel from Europe to the United States for the next 30 days,” he said.

But he made one massive and eyebrow-raising exception.

“These restrictions will not apply to the United Kingdom.”

RELATED: Follow the latest coronavirus updates
 

The UK may no longer be part of the European Union (EU) but the last time anyone looked it was still solidly part of the continent of Europe, sitting between France and Ireland.

So why has the UK been exempted? There are some conspiracy theories online already. Is it because of the President’s kinship with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson? Does he think “Brexit let the country fully disconnect from Europe as a land mass and float away?” as one asked on social media. Is it because he owns a golf course in Scotland?
 

the arbitrary decision to keep our lines open to the UK makes me think Trump believes Brexit let the country fully disconnect from Europe as a land mass and float away...

— Jenna Amatulli (@ohheyjenna) March 12, 2020

Trump cancels all travel to and from Europe except the UK? What kind of sense does that make?

— Branford Marsalis (@bmarsalis) March 12, 2020

Confirmed cases:

* UK: 459
* Austria: 246
* Greece: 99
* Iceland: 85
* Finland: 59
* Portugal: 59
* Ireland: 43
* Poland: 31
* Hungary: 13https://t.co/fnOOE9o1pb

— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) March 12, 2020

A look at the numbers of people affected with COVID-19 shows that while the UK certainly doesn’t have a situation as dire as Italy; it’s hardly untouched by the virus.

Britain now has 490 confirmed coronavirus cases with eight fatalities. That is nothing compared to Italy’s 12,462 case and 827 deaths.

It’s also less that France with 2281 cases and 48 deaths and Germany that has nearly 2000 cases and three deaths.

Smaller European countries such as Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Denmark all have more infections than the UK.

But there are other EU nations that have fewer infections than Britain. Austria, despite having an open border with Germany, has just 246 cases. Greece, the Czech Republic and Finland have less than 100 cases apiece.
 

So why allow flights to depart for New York from London Heathrow but not Athens International?

In his speech, Trump took a swipe at the EU suggesting part of the reason was it had not done enough when it came to combating COVID-19.

“The European Union failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from China and other hot spots. As a result, a large number of new clusters in the United States were seeded by travellers from Europe,” he said.

ONE WORD: SCHENGEN

The actual given reason can be summed up in one word: Schengen.

Schengen, as few people know, is a small town of 5000 people in Luxembourg surrounded by vineyards.

But it’s far better known for giving its name to the Schengen Agreement.

Enacted in 1985, the agreement effectively turned the EU’s internal borders from physical checkpoints into almost forgotten lines on a map marked merely by a sign on the side of the road.

After Schengen was signed, driving from Paris to Madrid was as hassle free as driving from Sydney to Brisbane.
 

Borders can only be reinstated under exceptional circumstances – such as right now when Italy closed itself off from the world.

But Britain refused to sign up to the Schengen Agreement.

To this day, anyone travelling from, say, Paris to London has to go through traditional passport control and a security checks whether they come by train, plane or on a ferry across the English Channel.

Being outside Schengen means the UK can track almost every person that enters the country.

The hope could be that being outside of Schengen gives the UK an extra layer of officialdom that may root out any European coronavirus carriers before they arrive in America.

Exempting the UK also exempts a huge and vital market for the US which is bad for business. Around 100 flights zip between the two each day, more than between the US and any other European nation.

There was a huge amount of confusion with the travel ban announcement. But it has now been clarified that when Trump said “Europe, except the UK”, he indeed meant European countries in the Schengen zone. That includes most of the EU plus neighbouring non-EU countries that have also signed up to it – such as Norway and Switzerland.
 

IRELAND ALSO EXEMPT

Irish state broadcaster RTE has stated Ireland too is exempt from the ban.

It is part of the EU but like Britain never signed up to the Schengen Agreement. Instead, it has an open border with the UK.

Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Cyprus – which are also part of the EU but not Schengen – and non-EU nations like Russia, Serbia and Ukraine, might still have the green light for US flights

But not being in Schengen doesn’t mean the UK is a fortress.

EU citizens still have visa-free freedom of movement to the UK, at least until the end of this year.

A resident of Madrid is unlikely to now be able to book a flight to LA via London. But they could theoretically travel to London, book an onward flight and board a plane there. Or they could head to Dublin, get the train to Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, and hop on a plane to New York.

Nonetheless, it does make travelling from Schengen countries to the US that bit harder.

But some have said an EU travel ban is pointless and by blaming Europe is just distracting from the US’ ills. Its response to the pandemic has been seen as shambolic with not enough testing kits available and citizens with genuine and well-founded fears they may have COVID-19 turned away from clinics and hospitals.

With the world’s eight highest number of cases – at 1313 and 30 plus deaths – coronavirus is already in America and banning flights from Amsterdam and Frankfurt is not going to change that.