A 30-day US entry ban on nationals of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and South Sudan, expanded on 5 June to include green-card holders, expires around 17 June with no announced extension, modification or lift as of publication. The ban is administered by the US Department of Health and Human Services, the federal department overseeing public health. The Africa CDC Emergency Consultative Group, the continental agency's scientific advisory body on outbreaks, calls the restriction of "little, if any, benefit"1.
The scientific case against entry bans is settled and has been since the 2014 West Africa epidemic. They delay rather than prevent importation, they displace travel through unscreened overland routes, and they deter the surveillance cooperation that lets responders see a virus coming. The original order, issued 18 May, rests on the same reasoning that the evidence rejects.
The same administration funding hundreds of millions of dollars of the response is restricting movement through the borders that response depends on partners keeping open. As of publication the border restriction stands as established fact; its fate at expiry is genuinely open, neither a reported lift nor a confirmed extension.
