Donald Trump has banned travel to the US from most of Europe – apart from the UK and Ireland – for 30 days in an attempt to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
The move failed to stem heavy losses on financial markets and prompted one top economist to warn that a global recession was now "highly probable".
In a sombre primetime address from the Oval Office on Wednesday evening, the US president boasted that the travel ban and series of other measures designed to cushion the economic blow of the outbreak amounted to "the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in history".
