A leading doctor with the World Health Organisation says Donald Trump’s European travel ban may actually give people a false sense of security and may have a net negative impact on efforts to combat the virus outbreak.

Margaret Harris, a doctor with that organisation, said that the WHO would prefer world leaders and health organisations to be focused on combating local outbreaks instead of shutting down borders.

Dr Harris said that shutting down borders may help in the early stages of an outbreak, but that it does little good once the virus is spreading within a community.

“We are not keen on travel bans generally with outbreaks because it makes the country concerned, focused more on managing their borders rather than focusing on what we’d like to see, the spread within the community — stopping the spread within the community,” she said. “And, really, supporting the health system to be able to look after the people that are and do get severely ill.”

Mr Trump announced on Wednesday night that the US would not permit most European nationals to enter the United States in the coming weeks, marking an escalation in the administration’s response to the outbreak after considerable criticism that the US government wasn’t taking the outbreak seriously.

Dr Harris, during her remarks, suggested that the plan — in addition to being too late — could actually make things worse.

“It gives a false sense of security because you think ‘ah yes, we’re doing something,’ but if [the virus] is already in your community, your focus needs to be on stopping it there,” she said.

The US president’s decision was also slammed by the European Union’s council president, Charles Michel, and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, who said the coronavirus pandemic is a “global crisis, not limited to any continent and it requires cooperation rather than unilateral action.”