Coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, says WHO

Bloomberg

The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, saying cases outside China have risen 13-fold. The US’s top infectious-disease specialist told lawmakers the pathogen is 10 times more deadly than the seasonal flu.
Britain announced a
$39 billion stimulus package, hours after the Bank of England cut interest rates. German Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged to do “whatever is necessary,” and the European Central Bank’s president warned of a significant shock.
New York reported 20 more cases. The state will ask businesses to consider staggering shifts and allowing employees to work from home, Governor Andrew Cuomo said. Washington recommended that all large gatherings be canceled in the nationa’s capital.
WHO Declares Pandemic (12:37 p.m. NY)
The outbreak of coronavirus is now a pandemic, the World Health Organization’s top official said Wednesday in a press briefing. The long-awaited pronouncement came as worldwide cases topped 120,000 while the number of deaths exceed 4,300.

“All countries can still change the course of this pandemic,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in the briefing. “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.”

The new coronavirus is the cause of the first pandemic since 2009, when a novel influenza strain swept around the world, infecting millions of people.