Trump Backs Away from New York Quarantine

US President Donald Trump has said quarantining New York "will not be necessary", after the state's governor said doing so would be "preposterous," BBC reports. 

"The President had earlier said he might impose a quarantine on New York, and parts of New Jersey and Connecticut, to slow the spread of COVID-19. There are more than 52,000 coronavirus cases in New York. The state has about half of the total confirmed COVID-19 cases in the entire US," reads the article. 

Trump tweeted that instead of quarantine, a "strong travel advisory" would be issued to New York, New Jersey and Connecticut by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC then published a statement urging residents of those three states to "refrain" from all non-essential domestic travel for 14 days.

New York's governor expressed concern at the idea of quarantine. 

Governor Andrew Cuomo responded by saying that quarantining the state of New York would be "preposterous" and "anti-American".

"If you said we were geographically restricted from leaving, that would be a lockdown," he said. 

He said New York had already implemented "quarantine" measures, such as banning major gatherings and ordering people to remain at home, but that he would oppose any "lockdown" efforts.

"Then we would be Wuhan, China, and that wouldn't make any sense," he told CNN, adding that this would cause the stock market to crash in a way that would make it impossible for the US economy to "recover for months, if not years".

"You would paralyze the financial sector," he said.

Source: BBC

Photo: AFP