President Donald Trump has announced that travel between Europe and the United States is to be suspended for the next 30 days in a bid to contain the spread of coronavirus. In a televised address the president said the measures were „strong but necessary”. The suspension kicks in at 11:59pm on Friday and it applies to anyone who has been inside the Schengen area, which includes Poland, in the two weeks prior to arriving in the US.

However, the UK and Ireland, which are not in the Schengen area, will not be included in the travel ban and American citizens can still return to the US. Meanwhile in Poland, today is the first day of mass closures including universities, museums, cinemas, and theatres. Public and private schools are open today and tomorrow but no classes are being held; they will close completely on Monday, meaning some 6 million children will not be in school or kindergarten.

Also yesterday, the World Health Organisation declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic for the first time. The WHO director general clarified that the classification as a pandemic does not change the level of risk or the type of response needed and does not mean the virus is beyond containment.

He called on all countries to detect, test, treat, isolate, trace, and mobilize their populations and criticised what he called an alarming level of inaction. He also emphasised that the vast majority of cases were in just four countries and that two of these countries, China and South Korea, are successfully fighting the virus.

Eastern NATO members meet to discuss CE Europe security

In news away from the virus, the defence ministers of nine Central and Eastern European NATO countries have been meeting in Vilnius this week to discuss security in the region.

The so-called Bucharest Nine brings together the counties in the Eastern boundaries of the alliance and includes Poland. At a two day meeting earlier this week, the defence ministers of the Bucharest Nine are believed to have discussed issues around Russia and China as well as 5G security and energy security.

According to reports from the AFP news agency, four of the countries at the conference, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Poland, criticised the European Union for cutting funding to a defence programme aimed at facilitating troop movement from Western Europe to the East in the event of conflict with Russia.

The 'military mobility’ programme has seen its proposed funding slashed EUR 6.5 billion to potentially zero under new proposals. But it wasn’t all business though, as the conference took time on Wednesday to mark the 30th anniversary of Lithuanian independence.

Lechia Gdańsk to the semi-final!

And lastly, Lechia Gdańsk beat Piast Gliwice by 2 goals to 1 yesterday to make it into the Semi-final of the Polish football cup.

Due to the virus the game had to played in an empty stadium, but the lack of home fans didn’t stop Lechia from taking their fourth consecutive win against Piast.

Two mid-match goals from Gomes and Paixao put Gdansk two up. A late goal by Piast’s Vida brought the final score to 2-1. Gdansk play their next match on Sunday in a Tricity derby against Arka Gdynia.

RG News/TAH