Donald Trump has said the UK could be added to the European countries included in the US coronavirus travel ban list.
During a White House press conference on Friday he said the UK exemption had been made after being “recommended to me by a group of professionals”.
However, he said the UK’s rising number of cases could result in a re-think of that decision.
“We are looking at it based on the new numbers that are coming out and we may have to include them in the list of countries that we will, you could say ban or whatever it is, during this period of time," he said.
"Their numbers have gone up fairly precipitously over the last 24 hours so we may be adding that and we may be adding a couple of others and we may frankly start thinking about taking some off.”
The World Health Organisation has branded Europe the new epicentre of the virus, which the US president said validated his previous decisions on travel bans.
He has been criticised over barring travel to mainland Europe but excluding the UK.
It comes as the US president declared a national emergency in the states over the virus.
