Trump considering Brazil travel ban over virus outbreak

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - US President Donald Trump said Tuesday he is considering imposing a halt on all travel coming from Latin America and Brazil amid worsening coronavirus outbreaks in the region.

"We are considering it," Trump said when asked by a reporter about possibly imposing the sweeping travel ban. "Brazil has gone more or less herd, and they're having problems."

Brazil is Latin America's COVID-19 epicenter, overtaking former hotspots the UK, Spain, and Italy on Tuesday to become the country with the third-highest number of coronavirus cases in the world behind only the US and Russia.

According to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, the country has registered over 262,000 cases and nearly 17,509 deaths.

Health experts say the real number of cases could be even higher because of insufficient testing in the country of around 210 million people.