Coronavirus: COVID-19 Is Now Officially A Pandemic, WHO Says
Source: NPR
The COVID-19 viral disease that has swept into at least 114 countries and killed more than 4,000 people is now officially a pandemic, the World Health Organization announced Wednesday. "This is the first pandemic caused by coronavirus," said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Eight countries — including the U.S. — are now each reporting more than 1,000 cases of COVID-19, caused by the virus that has infected more than 120,000 people worldwide. A severe outbreak in Italy has now caused more than 630 deaths there, and the country's case total continues to rise sharply. It's now at 10,000 cases, second only to China. There are 9,000 cases in Iran, and more than 7,700 in South Korea.
Those countries are all imposing drastic measures in an attempt to slow the COVID-19 illness, which has a higher fatality rate for elderly people and those with underlying health conditions. "In the Americas, Honduras, Jamaica and Panama are all confirming coronavirus infections for the first time," NPR's Jason Beaubien reports. "Elsewhere Mongolia and Cyprus are also now reporting cases."
The WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency in January, as cases surged in China, the epicenter of the outbreak. As the outbreak has grown since then, so has speculation that the organization would raise its warnings about the virus to the highest level. But Tedros said WHO experts had determined that the scale of the coronavirus's impact didn't warrant the description. And he noted that declaring the outbreak a pandemic would raise the risk that members of the public could panic.
Read more: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/11/814474930/coronavirus-covid-19-is-now-officially-a-pandemic-who-says
= new reply since forum marked as read
that she was laughing about this belated declaration since CNN has been calling it a "pandemic" for awhile now. 
was due to a lack of solid statistics of the infection and death rates - particularly due to the epicenter being in China and trying to navigate some of the Chinese smokescreens about what was really going on...
They now have enough to confirm that it is more contagious than the flu and is deadlier - but the mortality rate is mainly hitting certain populations.
However the horse is out of the gate and the response to this compared to past pandemics like SARS or Ebola or even the H1N1 ("Swine Flu" ), has been wild and unprecedented! 
WHO Says COVID-19 Can Be Called A ‘Pandemic’ Amid Spread, Gov’t
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/world-health-organization-covid-coronavirus-pandemic-spread-inaction
By Matt Shuham March 11, 2020 1:09 p.m.
The World Health Organization on Wednesday announced that COVID-19, the disease resulting from the novel coronavirus that spread across the globe, can be considered a pandemic.
The organization has in the past resisted applying the label to the disease, saying it was still possible for it to be contained in the various areas to which it had spread.
“We’re deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction,” WHO Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesuse said at a press conference Wednesday.
“We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic.”.........................
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus gestures as he speaks during a daily press briefing on COVID-19 virus at the WHO headquaters in Geneva on March 9, 2020. - The World Health ... MORE
