In an Oval Office address Wednesday night, President Trump announced a series of steps aimed at stemming the spread of the coronavirus, including a 30-day ban on travel from Europe to the United States and the deferral of tax payments for affected businesses.

The ban on travel from Europe will begin Friday at midnight and will not include the United Kingdom, Trump said. He added that there will be exemptions for Americans who have received “appropriate screenings,” although he did not go into detail.

In his brief address to the nation, Trump described the coronavirus as “a foreign virus” that “started in China and is now spreading throughout the world.” He blamed Europe for not enacting strict early travel restrictions on China as the United States did and said American clusters of the virus were “seeded by travel from Europe.”

“The virus will not have a chance against us,” Trump said. “No nation is more prepared or more resilient than the United States.”

The Department of Homeland Security’s acting secretary, Chad Wolf, said in a statement that Trump has suspended entry to the United States for “most foreign nationals who have been in certain European countries at any point during the 14 days prior to their scheduled arrival” — a rule that does not apply to legal permanent residents, immediate family of U.S. citizens (“generally,” Wolf qualified) and some others.

“I applaud the president for making this tough and necessary decision,” Wolf said.

The tone of Trump’s speech contrasted sharply with his previous remarks on the topic. Trump has repeatedly played down the severity of the crisis and has continued to shake hands with supporters and make plans for campaign events in defiance of his own administration’s guidance.

Trump did, however, repeat his assertion that the risk to most Americans is “very, very low,” even though public health experts in his administration have called for the public to take the matter seriously.

In addition to the travel ban, Trump announced that he will direct the Small Business Administration to provide low-interest loans to affected businesses and will ask Congress to provide the agency with an additional $50 billion in emergency authority.

Trump also said he will instruct the Treasury Department to defer tax payments without interest or penalties for certain individuals and businesses that have been affected. And he called on Congress to provide “immediate payroll tax belief” in an effort to mitigate the impact of the crisis on the nation’s economy.

“This is not a financial crisis,” Trump said. “This is just a temporary moment of time that we will overcome together as a nation and as a world.”