WHO says China’s coronavirus outbreak isn’t a global emergency yet
The outbreak of a novel coronavirus in China has not yet risen to the level of a global public health emergency, the World Health Organization said January 23 — even as the death toll and number of people sickened rose steeply from just days ago. Since the virus emerged in December in the central Chinese city of Wuhan (SN: 1/10/20), it has killed at least 17 people out of 557 confirmed cases in China and at least six other countries, WHO said. That’s already double the number of cases reported by Chinese officials just two days earlier, though the jump may be a result of more robust monitoring. Still, China has responded by putting several cities under lockdown in hopes of containing the virus. “Make no mistake, this is an emergency in China,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a news conference. “But it has not yet become a global health emergency. It may yet become one.” So far, there is no...