WASHINGTON (AFP) — Vice President Joe Biden courted controversy Thursday by appearing to recommend the US public avoid travel on planes and subways to prevent swine flu from spreading.
That is not the official advice of US health authorities, and Biden's office later issued a clarification to say the vice president was referring only to an administration warning against non-essential travel to Mexico.
But in an interview with NBC's "Today" show, the gaffe-prone Biden spoke in more general terms when asked whether he would advise his family members against flying to Mexico, the outbreak's epicenter.
"I would tell members of my family -- and I have -- I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now," he said.
"It's not that it's going to Mexico -- it's that you're in a confined aircraft. When one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft," Biden said.
He added: "I would not be at this point, if they had another way of transportation, suggesting they ride the subway."
Biden's spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander tried to row back in a later statement.
"The advice he is giving family members is the same advice the administration is giving to all Americans: that they should avoid unnecessary air travel to and from Mexico," she said.
"If they are sick, they should avoid airplanes and other confined public spaces, such as subways."
In the NBC interview, Biden also reiterated the US administration's opposition to closing the border with Mexico.
"Do we close the Canadian border too? Do we close flights coming out of countries in Europe where it has been identified now?" the vice president said.
"We're told that is not an efficacious use of our effort, that we should be focusing on mitigation."
President Barack Obama late Wednesday vowed to do "whatever it takes" to combat the deadly swine flu but said closing the border would be pointless with the virus already spreading on US soil.
Obama acknowledged the World Health Organization's decision to raise its six-step pandemic alert rating to level five, or "imminent," while insisting that the disease's spread "is a cause for deep concern, but not panic."
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