Breaking: COVID-19 Confirmed as Pandemic by WHO

ShanghaiExpat

"This is a global pandemic",

the WHO just announced.

The spread of the coronavirus across more than 100 countries now qualifies as a global pandemic, World Health Organization officials said on Wednesday, confirming what many epidemiologists have been saying for weeks.

世卫组织总干事谭德赛：世卫组织一直在不停地评估新冠肺炎疫情的爆发。我们对传播和严重程度、以及令人警觉的不作为的程度深感担忧。因此，我们做出了评估，将新型冠状病毒疫情视为全球大流行病。

Until now, the WHO had avoided using the term to describe the epidemic leapfrogging across the world, for fear of giving the impression that it was unstoppable and countries would give up on trying to contain it. The organization had said earlier in the outbreak that it no longer officially declared when an epidemic reaches pandemic proportions, preferring instead to declare global public health emergencies.

“Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, chief of the WHO, said at a news conference in Geneva.

“We cannot say this loudly enough or clearly enough or often enough,” he added. “All countries can still change the course of this pandemic.”

Global Map of COVID-19

Updated on March 11, 23:25

Source: Expat Focus

But now there is evidence on six continents of sustained transmission of the virus, which has infected more than 120,000 people and killed more than 4,300, and by most scientific measures the spread qualifies as a pandemic. The designation itself is largely symbolic, but public health officials know that the public will hear in the word elements of danger and risk.

According to the WHO, an epidemic is defined as a regional outbreak of an illness that spreads unexpectedly. In 2010, it defined a pandemic as “the worldwide spread of a new disease” that affects large numbers of people. The C.D.C. says it is “an epidemic that has spread over several countries or continents, usually affecting a large number of people.”

Source: New York Times