[Watch] WHO Utters the Cursed Word, Coronavirus ‘Pandemic’!

In a major development, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on Wednesday as the new coronavirus, which was unknown to world health officials just three months ago, has rapidly spread to more than 121,000 people from Asia to the Middle East, Europe and the United States, reports CNBC

WHO Director General’s Press Briefing

On a press briefing given yesterday night, the WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom made the following remarks which can be found on the WHO website.

In the past two weeks, the number of cases of COVID-19 outside China has increased 13-fold, and the number of affected countries has tripled.

There are now more than 118,000 cases in 114 countries, and 4,291 people have lost their lives.

Thousands more are fighting for their lives in hospitals.

In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of cases, the number of deaths, and the number of affected countries climb even higher.

WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and we are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction.

We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic.

Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly. It is a word that, if misused, can cause unreasonable fear, or unjustified acceptance that the fight is over, leading to unnecessary suffering and death.

Describing the situation as a pandemic does not change WHO’s assessment of the threat posed by this virus. It doesn’t change what WHO is doing, and it doesn’t change what countries should do.

We have never before seen a pandemic sparked by a coronavirus. This is the first pandemic caused by a coronavirus.

And we have never before seen a pandemic that can be controlled, at the same time.

WHO has been in full response mode since we were notified of the first cases.

And we have called every day for countries to take urgent and aggressive action.

We have rung the alarm bell loud and clear.

As I said on Monday, just looking at the number of cases and the number of countries affected does not tell the full story.

Of the 118,000 cases reported globally in 114 countries, more than 90 percent of cases are in just four countries, and two of those – China and the Republic of Korea – have significantly declining epidemics.

81 countries have not reported any cases, and 57 countries have reported 10 cases or less.

We cannot say this loudly enough, or clearly enough, or often enough: all countries can still change the course of this pandemic.

If countries detect, test, treat, isolate, trace, and mobilize their people in the response, those with a handful of cases can prevent those cases becoming clusters, and those clusters becoming community transmission.

Even those countries with community transmission or large clusters can turn the tide on this virus.

Several countries have demonstrated that this virus can be suppressed and controlled.

The challenge for many countries who are now dealing with large clusters or community transmission is not whether they can do the same – it’s whether they will.

• Some countries are struggling with a lack of capacity.
• Some countries are struggling with a lack of resources.
• Some countries are struggling with a lack of resolve.

We are grateful for the measures being taken in Iran, Italy and the Republic of Korea to slow the virus and control their epidemics.

We know that these measures are taking a heavy toll on societies and economies, just as they did in China.

All countries must strike a fine balance between protecting health, minimizing economic and social disruption, and respecting human rights.

WHO’s mandate is public health. But we’re working with many partners across all sectors to mitigate the social and economic consequences of this pandemic.

This is not just a public health crisis, it is a crisis that will touch every sector – so every sector and every individual must be involved in the fight.

I have said from the beginning that countries must take a whole-of-government, whole-of-society approach, built around a comprehensive strategy to prevent infections, save lives and minimize impact.

Let me summarize it in four key areas.

• First, prepare and be ready.
• Second, detect, protect and treat.
• Third, reduce transmission.
• Fourth, innovate and learn.

I remind all countries that we are calling on you to activate and scale up your emergency response mechanisms;

• Communicate with your people about the risks and how they can protect themselves – this is everybody’s business;
• Find, isolate, test and treat every case and trace every contact;
• Ready your hospitals;
• Protect and train your health workers.

And let’s all look out for each other, because we need each other.

There’s been so much attention on one word.

Let me give you some other words that matter much more, and that are much more actionable.

• Prevention.
• Preparedness.
• Public health.
• Political leadership.
• And most of all, people.

We’re in this together, to do the right things with calm and protect the citizens of the world. It’s doable.

I thank you.

Economic Effect of this Declaration

Declaring a pandemic is charged with major political and economic ramifications, global health experts say. It can further rattle already fragile world markets and lead to more stringent travel and trade restrictions. WHO officials had been reluctant to declare a global pandemic, which is generally defined as an illness that spreads far and wide throughout the world.

WHO officials needed to “make it clear” that the world was in the midst of a pandemic, said Lawrence Gostin, a professor and faculty director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University.

It “is clear” the new coronavirus has been a pandemic and WHO was “behind the curve,” Gostin told CNBC on Tuesday.

The number of cases and deaths changes by the hour, topping 121,564 with at least 4,373 deaths across the world as of Wednesday morning, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Outside China, 32,778 cases across at least 109 countries had been confirmed as of 3 a.m. ET Tuesday — up from 282 cases in four countries on Jan. 21, according to the most recent data confirmed by WHO, which tallies the official count.

While the virus is slowing in China where it originated in December, it’s picking up pace across other parts of the world. Italy has the most cases outside China with roughly 10,149 infections, followed closely by Iran with 9,000 infections and South Korea with 7,775, according to Johns Hopkins University data. In the U.S., cases erupted over the last week to more than 1,050 spread across at least 36 states, according to Hopkins.

The last time WHO declared a pandemic was during the 2009 H1N1 swine flu outbreak. Tedros said COVID-19 is the first time a coronavirus has caused a pandemic. The 2002-2003 outbreak of SARS, which is also a coronavirus, was contained enough to avoid that classification.

Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, said health officials take the characterization “very seriously,” adding “we understand the implication of the word.”

“The fact is right now in countries, we have front-line health workers who need our help,” Ryan said. “We have hospitals who need our support. We have people who need our care and we need to focus on getting our front-line health workers the equipment, supplies and the training they need to do a good job.”

“All countries need to reveal their strategies right now,” he added.

When asked which countries aren’t doing enough to combat the virus, Ryan said he wouldn’t call out individual countries by name, but added: “you know who you are.”

Some countries are still using a stringent testing criteria, requiring people to show full symptoms, be over a certain age or somehow linked to travel to China, he said. Some countries haven’t been able to stop the virus from spreading within their health-care system or have given up on tracing cases back to their original source, he said.

“Some countries have not been communicating well with their populations and creating some confusions in the minds of the populations and risk communication,” he said, adding that “trust between governments and their citizens really does need to come to the center.”

Epidemics stress every component of a nation, he said.

“They stress governance, they stress trust between government and the citizen, they stress the hospital system, they stress public health systems, they stress the economic systems,” he said. “In many cases what we’re witnessing across society is a lack of resilience.”

The organization raised its risk assessment level on the virus to its highest level of alert last month.

“This is a reality check for every government on the planet: Wake up. Get ready. This virus may be on its way and you need to be ready. You have a duty to your citizens, you have a duty to the world to be ready,”  Ryan said on Feb. 28.

Read CNBC’s live updates to see the latest news on the COVID-19 outbreak.