NATIONWIDE — U.S. travel restrictions are now in place to try to contain the Wuhan coronavirus. They went into effect Sunday night.
- Foreign nationals who visited China banned from entering US
- Americans also face restrictions; proactive entry health screenings required
- Currently, there are no confirmed cases in Florida
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The restrictions ban foreign nationals from entering the U.S. if they have visited China in the previous two weeks. U.S. citizens also face restrictions. Those who enter the U.S. after visiting the Wuhan province considered the epicenter of the virus will be quarantined for two weeks.
White House officials unveiled the restrictions along with proactive health screenings.
"Any U.S. citizen returning to the United States who has been in the rest of mainland China within the previous 14 days will undergo proactive entry health screening at a select number of ports of entry," explained Alex Azar of the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and chairman of the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
Those ports of entry are seven designated airports:
- JFK
- LAX
- Seattle
- San Francisco
- Chicago
- Atlanta
- Honolulu
The Transportation Security Administration now requires airlines to ask all passengers booked on flights from outside of the U.S. if they have been to mainland China in the last 14 days.
Airline passengers may wind up rerouted to one of those designated airports if officials discover mid-flight that someone onboard has been in China in the last two weeks.
At least 11 cases have been confirmed in the U.S. On Sunday, California health officials confirmed the second person-to-person case in the U.S. So far, there are no confirmed cases in Florida.
Meanwhile, China opened a new hospital built in 10 days and further restricted people's movement in sweeping new steps Monday to contain a rapidly spreading virus and its escalating impact.
Chinese health authorities released updated figures of 361 deaths and 17,205 confirmed cases, an increase of 2,829 over a 24-hour period, as other countries continued evacuating citizens from hardest-hit Hubei province and restricted the entry of Chinese or people who recently traveled in the country.
The World Health Organization said the number of cases will keep growing because tests are pending on thousands of suspected cases.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, presiding over a special meeting of the country's top Communist Party body for the second time since the crisis started, said "we have launched a people’s war of prevention of the epidemic."
The Associated Press contributed to this story.