Hubei is ground zero. China has locked the province down and other provinces are doing better than South Korea, Italy or Iran at this point. The ban was justified weeks ago - less so now.
Why is South Korea, etc. not under similar travel restrictions?
China has not been forthcoming as to the true scale of the epidemic. It has spread far past Hubei and is not likely under the degree of control that they claim - it is simply impossible to mobilize the manpower and resources required in such a short time. It is possible for both political reasons and containment to play a role in the ban.
Meanwhile the outbreak in SK has just started in earnest and as a democratic nation with ostensibly more relaxed freedom of speech and close government cooperation, as well as local U.S. bases, there is less uncertainty regarding the status of spread in SK which places less of a priority on closing off travel. Still, if the virus continues to spread you can expect that travel to be restricted as well.
In any case, shaming officials for xenophobia is absolutely inapropriate in this time of crisis. All travel restrictions are going to line up by national and racial lines, because national borders do as well. You can't keep your borders open during a pandemic in order to preserve political correctness.
I never argued it was xenophobia - it's that geopolitical factors (S. Korea strong ally; China rival) are heavily influencing this decision.
I definitely agree that the numbers are being less massaged in Korea than China, but there's a questions of how off they can be.
> . Still, if the virus continues to spread you can expect that travel to be restricted as well.
S. Korea has 1700 cases and 13 deaths from Covid-19 at this point. On the day the US issued its travel ban on China (Jan 31), China had 12k cases and and 259 deaths. China has 25x the population, meaning S. Korea is already more infected than China (going by official numbers) when the ban was issued on China -- and in particular, almost certainly more infected than China outside Hubei.
More to the point, it is not credible at this point that the spread/person in China (esp. outside Hubei) is faster than Korea (Chinese citizens have been quarantining themselves for weeks now). I am far more worried about a random traveler today coming from S. Korea than say a tier-1 Chinese city (Shanghai, Beijing) - we're talking a 10x risk multiplier realistically - but we aren't even recommending self-quarantines for visitors from Korea.
Note that Israel (which has less geopolitical opinions on East Asia) has bans on basically all of East Asia.
Why is South Korea, etc. not under similar travel restrictions?