Travels are suspended. Schools are shut down. Shops and restaurants are closed. Hours after the WHO declared the COVID-19 a pandemic, countries around the world have realized they were not responding decisively enough to the virus and finally began to scramble more aggressive measures, in ways all too familiar to the Chinese people.

US President Donald Trump declared a suspension of all flights from Europe except for the UK in the next 30 days starting Friday, an unprecedented move taken by the US. 

An illustration of global travel restrictions amid COVID-19 Photo: GT

Trump's speech came hours after Italy, the first EU nation to declare a nationwide lockdown, ordered all shops in the country closed, except groceries and drug stores.

Switzerland also moved to control border crossings with Italy, but is letting workers go to their jobs, and Slovenia, another neighboring country of Italy, has yet to announce the closure of its border with Italy. Many other European countries have introduced corresponding measures.

To contain the spreading epidemic, India suspended all visas issued starting Friday, except for those already in the country.

"No country is alone in facing the pandemic. The campaign against the virus in China has gradually led to a phased victory. But the campaign against the virus has just begun globally," Shen Yi, an associate professor of international politics at Fudan University in Shanghai, told the Global Times, urging nations to take decisive and strong measures to contain the expanding coronavirus. 

However, the restrictive measures adopted by the US and some European nations so far seem quite loose and have abundant loopholes, compared to the measures taken by China, where nationwide resources were mobilized, observers noted. 

Accusing the EU of failing to take precautions against the virus, Trump made the unprecedented travel ban. But the ban neither applies to flights from the UK nor includes US citizens, which many Americans criticized as not a thorough public health policy but a measure full of loopholes.

Trump may deliberately want people to get flights before the ban takes effect on Friday, and people would easily get to the US by taking a flight from the UK, some netizens said.  

Wang Yiwei, director of the Centre for European Union studies at the Renmin University of China in Beijing, said locking down Italy only slows the spread of the virus, not curb the virus in the EU. 

"To contain the virus, China not only locked down Wuhan, but people and good delivery in every village and community in Chinese cities are restricted. The EU block lacks overall coordination, which ironically even leads to friction between EU nations," Wang said.

The COVID-19, now a pandemic, may also drag down the global economy in the short term and deal a blow to globalization. But the blow is not an end to globalization, said Zhang Yiwu, a cultural expert from Peking University.

In the future, people need a safer and more secure globalization. The demand for social connections based on the internet through information technology such as 5G, need for the safe flow of people and logistics development, and expectations for artificial intelligence technology-based production and flow chains are an option, Zhang said. 

These will become new growth points in the new globalization, Zhang told the Global Times. 

Echoing Zhang, Shen said the world cannot return to the time before globalization. It requires a higher quality of global governance and globalization, rather than passively returning to a state of mutual inactivity.


Newspaper headline: Pandemic sends shockwaves