A14 eZ re THE WASHINGTON POST.SATURDAy, MARCH 21 , 2020
the coronavirus outbreak
thing.’ Another is, ‘Wait a minute,
we have seen we are too intercon-
nected.’ ”
E.U. leaders in Brussels moved
quickly to allow truck transporta-
tion to continue, fearing that
shortages of medical supplies
could worsen the pandemic. But
by week’s end, there were still
pileups at borders across the con-
tinent.
In sub-Saharan Africa, sweep-
ing travel restrictions have gone
into effect despite only 353 con-
firmed cases across its 48 coun-
tries as of Friday, according to the
Africa C enters f or Disease Control
and Prevention. Nearly every
country has imposed t otal or near-
total entry restrictions on nonresi-
dent foreigners and suspended is-
suance of new visas. More than a
dozen have closed airports to in-
ternational flights.
Karen M walo, 34, was p lanning
a marital ceremony with her hus-
band known as an “itara” on April
18, i n which M walo’s family would
visit the homestead of her hus-
band’s parents in western Kenya.
Some family members were com-
ing from as far as Denmark and
the Netherlands.
“We can’t go ahead,” said Mwa-
lo, who said they have postponed
their plans until at least July. I t is
“not good to be risking people. You
never know. It’s a lready a breeding
ground h ere.”
Brazil, which has at least 700
confirmed cases of the novel coro-
navirus, by far Latin America’s
most, is taking a more relaxedapproach that has led local gov-
ernments to act. B eginning Satur-
day, t he state of R io de Janeiro will
effectively seal itself off from the
rest of the country, and the city of
Rio w ill s eal itself o ff f rom the r est
of the state.
“It is a painful process to inter-
fere in t his way with people’s l ives,
but it’s necessary,” said Wilson
Witzel, the governor of Rio de
Janeiro state.
In the Middle East, J ordan,
Iraq, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia
halted international flights over
the past week and sealed their
land borders. Other countries in
the region have sharply curtailed
the flights, and the United Arab
Emirates is allowing entry only to
the small number of people who
are UAE citizens.
After initially only restricting
travel from the most infected
parts o f the world — C hina’s H ubei
province a nd regions i n South Ko-
rea, Iran and Italy — Japan sud-
denly switched gears.
Earlier this month, Japan can-
celed 3 million visas i ssued to Chi-
nese and South Korean visitors,
and it said anyone arriving from
those countries would be subject-
ed to a 14-day quarantine. On
Wednesday, Prime Minister Shin-
zo Abe said travelers from E urope,
Egypt and Iran would h ave to self-
quarantine for 14 days and refrain
from using public transport.
India, the world’s second-most
populous nation, has progressive-
ly sealed itself off from the world
as the crisis has intensified. OnThursday, it became the largest
country to announce a one-week
total ban, starting M arch 22, on a ll
arriving commercial flights from
abroad.
For people such as Rupa Subra-
manya, 40, the virtual walls com-
ing up around the w orld h ave ren-
dered her life unrecognizable. For
the past decade, Subramanya and
her husband, both economists,
have split their time between In-
dia and Canada, traveling back
and forth about four times a year.
But when she attempted to fly
from Mumbai to Ottawa on March
19, she encountered a maze of
obstacles, including gate agents
telling her that she did not meet
Canada’s new restrictions on en-
try, e ven though s he did.
Mumbai’s normally bustling
airport was “desolate,” she said.
Standing in a near-empty termi-
nal “was like being in a zombie
movie,” she said. She missed her
flight to Canada, but she will try
again at the end of March if India
does not extend its ban. “Who’s to
say [the ban] is not going to last
longer?” she asked. “It sounds lu-
dicrous, but everything that I
thought was ludicrous is happen-
ing.”
[email protected]max Bearak in nairobi, Kevin sieff in
mexico city, michael Birnbaum in
Brussels, Joanna slater in new Delhi,
ana Herrero in caracas, te rrence
mccoy in rio de Janeiro, simon
Denyer in tokyo and Liz sly in Beirut
contributed to this report.BY AMANDA COLETTA
AND GREGORY SCRUGGStoronto — This was not how
Bob Slack expected his sojourn in
Winter Haven, Fla., to end.
For 21 years, he and his wife
have left their home in Athens,
Ontario — some 75 miles south of
Ottawa — to spend their winters
in warmer places, just like hun-
dreds of thousands of other
“snowbirds.” The couple arrived
in Florida in November and
planned to return to Canada late
next month.
Now they and many others are
scrambling to get home after
Canada and the United States
announced Wednesday that they
had agreed to close their 5,500-
mile border — the world’s longest
land boundary — to nonessential
traffic in an effort to block the
novel coronavirus.
Slack said his family had urged
him to come back before the
announcement, as the number of
cases of the deadly virus in Flori-
da ticked upward. He had almost
decided to leave, “to keep peace in
the family,” he said, but news of
the partial border shutdown pro-
vided a “push.”
“Once we cross the border,
we’ll be relieved,” he said.
The restrictions, which kick in
at m idnight, have not only upend-
ed travel plans but also brought
confusion and angst to closely
intertwined border communities.
Some 200,000 people and
more than $1.6 billion in goods
traverse the U.S.-Canada border
each day. The boundary has not
been closed since the United
States unilaterally shuttered it
after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks — a days-long closure that
led to crippling lines.
Canadian Prime Minister Jus-
tin Trudeau announced the clo-
sure of Canada’s borders to most
foreign nationals Monday but ex-
empted U.S. citizens, citing the
“level of integration of our two
economies.” The move drew criti-
cism, including from British Co-lumbia’s health minister, who
noted a surge of cases in neigh-
boring Washington state.
Trudeau and President Trump
announced the partial border clo-
sure two days later. The restric-
tions, which will last for at least
30 days, will allow the flow of
commercial goods and trade to
continue and also exempt travel-
ers crossing the border for medi-
cal purposes, to study or to work.
Those traveling for tourism and
recreation will be barred.
Asylum seekers who try to
enter Canada irregularly from the
United States will also be sent
back as part of a temporary new
agreement between the two
countries, Trudeau told reporters
outside Rideau Cottage in Otta-
wa, where he has been in isola-
tion since his wife tested positive
for covid-19, the disease caused by
the novel coronavirus, last week.
The measures make no men-
tion of specific documents need-
ed to prove business travel. Ana-
lysts say much could depend on
how individual border agents in-
terpret them, leading to uneven
implementation.
Eric Miller, president of the
Washington-based Rideau Poto-
mac Strategy Group, expects
some “bumpy moments.”
U.S. and Canadian citizens
who are abroad will be allowed to
return home, even after the mea-
sures are implemented — mean-
ing Slack didn’t have to rush to
return to Canada before mid-
night Friday.
Evan Rachkovsky, a spokes-
man for the Canadian Snowbird
Association, said many were has-
tening to get home after some
insurance providers advised cli-
ents their coverage will end in 10
days. Others, he said, were strug-
gling to find flights after several
airlines curtailed service.
Bill Blair, Canada’s public safe-
ty minister, said Friday there has
already been “a significant de-
cline” in cross-border travel since
Wednesday’s announcement. As
of Friday afternoon, there was nodelay for passengers at most
cr ossings, according to an online
tracker updated by Canada Bor-
der Services Agency.
Jim Diodati, mayor of Niagara
Falls, Ontario, told CTV News this
week that the city had become a
“ghost town” and that lines at the
border were virtually nonexis-
tent.
But at the crossing between
Coutts, Alberta, and Sweet Grass,
Mont., wait times to get into
Canada stretched to almost an
hour Friday.
Will Harty, the owner of the
Double Tree Inn in Coutts, wor-
ries the partial border closure
will hurt the motel he has owned
for two decades.
“I hope they get this taken care
of and it ends and things go back
to normal,” he said.
In Blaine, Wash., a seaside
border town alongside neighbor-
ing White Rock, British Colum-
bia, public officials and business
owners have been bracing for the
restrictions.
The downturn in cross-border
traffic has sent year-over-year
sales plummeting about 90 per-
cent in the past two weeks at
Mike Hill’s Chevron station,
where most business comes from
Canadians buying cheaper U.S.
gas.
“When you shut that vein off,
all the gas stations are empty,” he
said.
There were no signs of last-
minute fill-ups Friday. Hill will
keep the pumps on for now, but
he has closed the store at the
historic gas station for the first
time in 112 years due to a lack of
business.
Slack said it would take about
21 hours to drive home. He and
his wife planned to stay some-
where overnight en route.
Amid all the chaos, he noted a
silver lining.
“Traffic is good,” he said. “Traf-
fic is very good.”
[email protected]scruggs reported from Blaine, Wash.Canadians scramble to make their way home
flocked to Colombia to buy or sell
food and o ther supplies to live — t o
risk dangerous trips across illegal
crossing controlled by armed
gangs a nd guerrilla g roups.
Vianney Durán, an unem-
ployed 22-year-old l aw s tudent liv-
ing in the Venezuelan border city
of La Fría, is one of the many who
crossed regularly into C olombia to
buy food and medicine. He has
also survived off remittances from
relatives working abroad that he
only was able to collect on the
other side o f the b order.
Now, t hat lifeline is closed.
“If we are not killed by the coro-
navirus, people will starve to
death if they don’t do something,”
Durán said.
The U. S. announcement that it
would close i ts borders with Mexi-
co, as well as Canada, sparked an
immediate outcry over the fate of
thousands of asylum seekers be-
ing held south of the border.
“I’ve been preparing for my
hearing, but now I don’t know if itwill happen,” said Daniel, a 20-
year-old Venezuelan asylum seek-
er with HIV who declined to give
his full name for fear of repercus-
sions from authorities. Daniel,
who was stuck in Piedras Negras,
Mexico, has a U.S. asylum hearing
scheduled for March 31. “With my
immune system, I need to be very
careful.”
In continental Europe, leaders
rushed guards to reoccupy long-
disused border posts to s tart t urn-
ing away n onresidents.
Trucks backed up for dozens of
miles on either side of Poland,
which imposed a particularly
stringent quarantine on anyone
entering the country, leading to
fears that other parts of Eastern
Europe would soon run out of
supplies.
“Right now there are two very
strong feelings,” said Latvian For-
eign Minister Edgars Rinkevics,
whose country was caught on the
isolated side of the Polish block-
ade. “One, ‘Let’s close down e very-BY ANTHONY FAIOLAEuropean t ruck drivers stuck in
miles-long backups. Asylum seek-
ers stranded in Mexico. Cities and
states within countries — f rom Rio
de Janeiro to Ta smania — sealing
themselves off from the rest of
their nations.
In a world where the once-
steady march of globalization hit
strong head winds in recent years
from nationalist governments, t he
novel coronavirus pandemic has
done more to suddenly halt and
reverse the notion of open — and
easily crossed — b orders than per-
haps any other event in modern
history.
The impact t o the global e cono-
my will be severe. Ye t the larger
question arising from empty in-
ternational airports and backed-
up land borders may be the long-
haul effect of the pandemic on
everything f rom freedom of m ove-
ment to asylum claims to trade.
“ The question is, when the
health crisis recedes, be that six
months, one year, or two years
from now, are we going to see the
protectionist measures related to
the health crisis recede too?” said
Stephanie Segal, a former senior
economist at the International
Monetary Fund and a senior fel-
low a t the Washington-based Cen-
ter for Strategic and International
Studies. “Certainly they will, but
will they ever go back to precrisis
levels?”
In t he meantime, t he pandemic
is stranding travelers and upend-
ing everything from refugee flows
to wedding rites.
In South America, still less im-
pacted than other regions, many
nations are striving to keep it that
way by imposing some of the
strictest border controls in the
world. Peru and Bolivia have sus-
pended international flights, re-
stricted crossings at land borders,
and deployed police and the mili-
tary on the s treets.
As concerns mount about the
ability of c risis-plagued Venezuela
to control the p andemic, i ts neigh-
bors have sealed its borders. The
closures have raised fears of a bot-
tleneck that could force migrants
— as well as Venezuelans who
Problems pile up as countries halt international access
Europe, Turkey, Philippines,
Afghanistan, Malaysia
Foreign nationals who had
been in China, Iran, Europe
Iran, China, parts of South Korea,
Britain and others in Europe
Bordering countries
Passengers must show they
had tested negative
U.S., China, Iran, Japan, South
Korea, Britain and others in EuropeEurope, India
All foreign nationals, except for
diplomats and airplane crewstes shown for th s of the flight bans, as of 2 p.m ridaFlight bans in the 10 biggest countries
COUNTRYNone
Limited
Extensive
FullNo ban on foreigners currently active
Banning people from a specific country/countries
Banning all but a few groups of foreigners from specified countries
Not allowing any foreigners inChinaIndia*United StatesIndonesiaBrazilPakistanNigeriaBangladeshRussiaMexico1,1,329269212204195168143132March 16March 13March 20March 19March 17March 18March 16March 18NoneExtensiveExtensiveExtensiveLimitedLimitedExtensiveLimitedFullNonePOPULATION
(MILLIONS)FLIGHT BAN
STATUSFLIGHT BAN
STARTEDPROHIBITS
TRAVELERS FROM* Starting March 22, for a period of one week,
no international passenger flights will land in India.marVIn recInos/agence France-Presse/getty Images
Passengers remain stranded Monday at the international airport in San Luis Talpa, El Salvador.
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