>>>Nothing stops people from China from flying to Europe and then the US.

What portion of the traveling population is willing to take trans-continental detours like that? Some controls are better than NO controls.

>>>Yes, it was racism. Yes, it was pointless.

Are you saying that strict controls on population movements originating from the source geographic region of a virus should never be implemented as an early step to containment?

Obama did it in 2014 in response to Ebola: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/21/us-limited-e...

and Asia did it to varying degrees in response to SARS in 2003: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/12/news/battling-the-spread-...