“I Walked Right Through US Customs From Italy. No One Asked Me Anything”

I see a couple of things here. All the travel bans, even the China one, had exclusions for US citizens. So there was no real reason for anyone to ask questions of anyone with a US passport because there was no authorization to do anything about it. Yes, Trump issued a travel ban from China early on. BUT, he had disbanded the Pandemic group in the NSC that had the knowledge and experience to know how to properly write the order and then execute it. So what you are hearing in these forums is that total lack of expertise and thus incomplete and ineffective execution. When the smoke clears, it will be interesting to hear from the former members of that Pandemic group to hear about what plans they had created to handle a Pandemic that this administration had no clue even existed and/or, in the early phases chose to ignore. In the most recent press conference, Trump said he had no knowledge about the Pandemic group being disbanded. This was a lie. A month or more ago he said that the people in the group hadn't done in anything is a long time so they were a waste of resources, he further said that if needed, they could get people back, good people, if and when they are needed, so it was not necessary to have these wasted resources. So even if they got the same people back, which is unlikely, they would be 2 years+ out of date and out of mind with what they had done, who they would need to contact, etc. I will lay odds that the Pandemic group had produced multiple 500 page documents on how to handle various types of pandemics, that was their job. So when new people could be found and put in place, even if they could find those docs, then it would take precious days, if not a couple of weeks for them to review those docs, determine which ones were appropriate to implement before they could even start doing anything effective. Since those docs would be at least 2 years out of date, even if they had contact information at the various companies and agencies, those contacts would likely be obsolete. Thus if you have ever had the need to find the right person in an agency to talk to, then you know it can easily take hours of phone calls just to get to the right person that has the authority to act for each entity that needs contacted. This all adds up to weeks of delay because Trump disbanded the group. I could go on, but at this point we all just need to step back and take a breath. We need to move forward from where we are. It seems clear to me that they never found the pandemic plans that already existed so they are making this up as they go. It sounds like they are slowly getting to where the Pandemic group at the NSC would have had them at from the very beginning. So we have no choice to trust that going forward things will get better. Trump, or should I say Pence, has finally gotten some intelligent people around him to create plans that make some sense. We will see if they can and will be executed in a timely manner. Remember, Trump and all of those with him in that recent press conference, never gave a single clue as to when any of the mentioned plans will be in place.

Same, end of Feb, from Milan. Daaughter just got back from 3 weeks in italy and france, walked right through via the global entry kiosks at SEA, no temps, screening, quarantine or masks on anyone. She said it was business as usual, only without the crowds.

If china wanted to destroy the US, they did it. We're a bunch of clowns that are going to die. Almost everyone in the world has done better than us at tackling this challenge. I feel ashamed to be associated with the Americans in charge of this debacle. Oh well, the chinese will swoop in their billions and buy the whole world pennies on the dollar after this 'accidental' global mess...

Went to Barcelona on Feb. 25th via Detroit and Paris and came back on March 3rd via Amsterdam and Detroit. Nowhere during this journey was any screening. In Amsterdam before boarding I was asked if I was in China or Iran during the last month. Arriving in Detroit was the easiest pass-thru passports and customs I have ever done. I use Global Entry and all it did is to take a pic of me and spit out a receipt, no questions asked. The custom asked "what are you bringing home buddy?" and I said "Just dirty laundry" and that was it. I was on my way to the next flight home. Honestly, it seemed weird how easy this trip went. Plus I had no one next to me or in front of me on the flights to Amsterdam and to Detroit on my way back. The most important, 10 days later I have no symptoms and fingers crossed will stay that way. Use proper hand hygiene everyone, it works.

vargha: Ah yes, the alleged magic of the free market. Unfortunately, as we're seeing now, the free market does not account for the collateral damage that occurs while the free market sorts itself out.