“We have right now a crisis with the coronavirus, emanating from China,” Biden said on Jan. 31 at a campaign event in Iowa. “A national emergency worldwide alerts. The American people need to have a president who they can trust what he says about it, that he is going to act rationally about it. In moments like this, this is where the credibility of the president is most needed, as he explains what we should and should not do. This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia – hysterical xenophobia – and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science.”
In an op-ed published several days prior in USA Today, Biden similarly argued: “The possibility of a pandemic is a challenge Donald Trump is unqualified to handle as president.” Biden wrote that he recalled “how Trump sought to stoke fear and stigma during the 2014 Ebola epidemic.” Trump, Biden wrote, “railed against the evidence-based response our administration put in place — which quelled the crisis and saved hundreds of thousands of lives — in favor of reactionary travel bans that would only have made things worse.”
So...Biden said that the travel restrictions were not rational and hysterical (In other words...blown out of proportion). Keep in mind...at the point Biden made these statements we already had confirmed cases here in the US. Worldwide we were already at a death toll of more than 200 and an exponential jump to more than 9800 cases...this was in less than a month of public being aware of it.