New Delhi, March 11
A pandemic is the "worldwide spread of a new disease", according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which means that nearly every human being on Earth -- close to 8 billion -- is now susceptible to coronavirus (Covid-19).
The coronavirus outbreak was on Wednesday declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), whose chief expressed his "deep concern" over the "alarming levels of inaction" in combating the virus spread.
"81 countries have not reported any #COVID19 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," the WHO tweeted.
Pandemic is an outbreak of a disease that occurs over a wide geographic area and affects an exceptionally high proportion of the population.
Pandemics, according to their classical definition, are epidemics that cross international boundaries and affect a large number of people worldwide.
There are now over 118,000 cases of Covid-19 spread across 114 countries around the world. The disease has already claimed over 4,000 lives.
"If countries detect, test, treat, isolate, trace, and mobilize their people in the response, those with a handful of #COVID19 cases can prevent those cases becoming clusters, and those clusters becoming community transmission," the global health body said in a tweet.
The WHO had classified the novel coronavirus as a global public health emergency on January 30.
Countries around the world, including the US, have already been leaning on pandemic preparedness plans to respond to the outbreaks of coronavirus.
The last time the WHO declared a pandemic was during the H1N1 outbreak in 2009, which infected nearly a quarter of the world's population.
The WHO, however, was later criticised for raising public alarm when the virus turned out to be not very lethal. H1N1 now returns seasonally and is part of the annual vaccine preparations.
SARS was not considered a pandemic, despite affecting people in 26 countries, and neither was MERS.
"As pandemic viruses emerge, countries and regions face different risks at different times. For that reason, countries are strongly advised to develop their own national risk assessments based on local circumstances, taking into consideration the information provided by the global assessments produced by WHO," according to the global health organisation.
Each pandemic is different and, until a virus starts circulating, it is impossible to predict its full effects.
Seattle, San Francisco ban large gatherings
Following the WHO epidemic call over new coronavirus, Seattle and San Francisco on Wednesday banned all large gatherings.
Washington state Governor Jay Inslee said he is banning gatherings of more than 250 people in several counties to try to curb the spread of the new coronavirus, reports CNBC.
San Francisco health officials also announced they were prohibiting public and private events of 1,000 or more.
Washington state is the hardest-hit state in the US with more than 267 confirmed cases.
"The number of cases doubles every several days and we've had multiple instances of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities where vulnerable persons reside. We expect a large-scale outbreak in weeks and this will be a very difficult time," King County health officer Dr Jeff Duchin was quoted as saying.
The ban in Washington state could be expanded to other counties and will likely be extended beyond March.
Moments later, San Francisco Mayor London Breed said: "We know that this order is disruptive, but it is an important step to support public health".
The coronavirus outbreak was Wednesday declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO), whose chief expressed his "deep concern" over "alarming levels of inaction" in combating the virus spread.
WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the number of cases outside China had increased 13-fold over the past two weeks, killing over 4,000 and infecting more than 1 lakh people.
