What WHO calling the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic means
Given its spread and rapidly growing impact, the coronavirus outbreak is now considered a pandemic, the World Health Organization announced March 11 in a news conference. So far, the virus has reached at least 114 countries, killed over 4,000 people and infected at least 120,000. The situation is likely to get worse before it improves. “We expect to see the number of cases, the number of deaths, and the number of affected countries climb even higher,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in the news conference. The WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency in late January, but declined to describe COVID-19 as a pandemic until now. “Using the word pandemic carelessly has no tangible benefit,” Ghebreyesus said in a news conference February 26. “But it does have significant risk in terms of amplifying unnecessary and unjustified fear and stigma, and paralyzing systems.” That sentiment, as well as a desire to emphasize the possibility of containing the virus once it enters a country,...