President Donald Trump has banned all travel from Europe to the US for 30 days from Friday, in an unprecedented move aimed at slowing the spread of coronavirus in the US.

In a primetime address, Mr Trump said he was ordering the drastic measure because of the large number of cases in Europe, which he said had failed to act quickly enough to curtail the spread by not banning travel from China after the outbreak of the virus.

“Taking early intense action, we have seen dramatically fewer cases of the virus in the United States that are now present in Europe,” he said. “The European Union failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from China?.?.?.?As a result, a large number of new clusters in the United States were seeded by travellers from Europe.”