Florence mayor: Hug a Chinese person

Some Italians took up the call from China, including Florence's mayor, Dario Nardella, who launched a nationwide campaign to ‘hug a Chinese person’, which was featured in a video posted to China's People's Daily, which is also run by the Chinese government. Nardella said he was running the campaign to "stem the hatred".

Nardella actively encouraged people to hug strangers during the coronavirus outbreak, an act now aggressively discouraged by health authorities in both Italy and beyond.

Sweden's top epidemiologist: closing borders 'completely meaningless'

In Sweden, restaurants, bars, and shops are still open. Children still go to school, and people can still gather in groups as large up to 500 people. Much of the country's strategy for dealing with coronavirus is based on advice from Anders Tegnell, Sweden's top epidemiologist at the Public Health Agency.

He believes the country should build its immunity while protecting at-risk groups, which means he is doing little to prevent the virus from spreading.

When Denmark closed its borders, Tegnell was critical, saying that Denmark's move was “completely meaningless.”

Despite Tegnell's claims that sealing the border was 'meaningless', Sweden went ahead and banned entry for all non-EU citizens into the country, with the exception of asylum seekers.

Tegnell: Safe for those infected in the same household to go to school or work

The next comment from Tegnell has little to do with borders but illustrates his promotion of a radically open society during a time when many nations are doing all they can to halt the spread of the virus.

In what left many Swedes in disbelief, including the country's prime minister, Tegnell said during a TV interview on March 18 that it was "safe" for people living in the same household as another person infected with coronavirus to continue going to work or school.

Bernie Sanders says he wouldn't close borders over coronavirus

“But let’s not go back to the same old thing,” said Senator Bernie Sanders, who is currently running for Democratic presidential nomination. “Isn’t it interesting that a president who has been demagoguing and demonizing immigrants, the first thing that he could think about is closing down the border?”

WHO spokesperson claims closing borders will make those with coronavirus feel like the 'enemy'

Other WHO officials also seemed to be concerned with political correctness over taking measures to contain the virus, including Margaret Harris, a World Health Organization spokesperson, who said that closing borders would suddenly make nations feel like they are 'fine'.

“You divert a lot of resources when you are focused on closing borders, rather than focusing on protecting your health workers, preparing your health systems, and enhancing your disease surveillance,” she told The Intercept. “You mistakenly think, ‘Oh, we closed our borders. We’re fine.’ But giving people the sense that they are the enemy, that they are the problem, makes people hide because they become very frightened of the consequences. They’re not sure that identifying themselves with the authorities will be something that has good consequences for them as we saw with Ebola.”

Despite countries across Europe closing their borders, there appears to be very little evidence that countries assume closing the borders means the threat of coronavirus is over and that their citizens are 'fine'. Instead, it is just one of many measures countries are taking to slow the spread of the virus and ensure that are not additional outbreaks to contend with.

CNN warns travel ban could stigmatize 'countries and ethnicities'

In a sign that the media also associated travel bans with racism as opposed to legitimate fear from leaders that the coronavirus could spread, CNN warned Trump's travel ban could “backfire” and have the effect of “stigmatizing countries and ethnicities".

Closing border with Europe will have no impact on U.S. spread of coronavirus

Regarding Trump's travel ban on European travelers during the coronavirus outbreak, Lawrence Gostin, a public health expert at Georgetown University, sent a tweet arguing against it.

"Most of Europe is as safe as US. This will have no impact on US ... germs don't respect borders," he wrote.

The EU appeared to disagree with him, as evidenced by the continent's own decision to implement its own border lockdown a little over a week later to stem the coronavirus outbreak.

European health ministers: Closing frontiers would be 'disproportionate and ineffective'

As deaths began to rise in Italy, Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza his German counterpart, Jens Spahn, and other health ministers from countries neighboring Italy met in Rome along with the EU's health commissioner. They issued a statement that closing frontiers would be a "disproportionate and ineffective" measure.

Both countries subsequently closed their borders.

Chancellor: Britain remains committed to open borders

After President Trump issued a travel ban restricting Europeans from traveling into the United States, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak said that Britain does not need to copy such a ban, saying that travel are "not going to have material effect" on spread of coronavirus.

“With regard to flight bans we are always guided by the science as we make our decisions here. The advice we are getting is that there isn’t evidence that interventions like closing borders or travel bans are going to have a material effect on the spread of the infections,” Sunak told the BBC.

Closing borders to Italy, China and Iran 'would not have any effect'

After the Sunday Times reported on March 22 that flights from the worst-hit countries of China, Italy, and Iran are still continuing to land in London on a daily basis, bringing an estimated 7,500 people to Britain a week from those three countries, an unnamed government spokesperson reiterated the government's position.

'There is no evidence that interventions like closing borders or travel bans would have any effect on the spread of infection," the spokesperson said.

EU 'experts': closing borders 'ineffective' for coronavirus

Citing unnamed EU "experts", EU Observer quoted them as saying they believed closing borders was "ineffective" for battling the coronavirus.

The EU appears to have disagreed with its own experts in the end but by then it was too late.