Thursday, March 12, 2020

WHO declares novel coronavirus outbreak a pandemic

WHO declares novel coronavirus outbreak a pandemic
Jamie Gumbrecht-Profile-Image
By Jamie Gumbrecht and Jacqueline Howard, CNN

Updated 0045 GMT (0845 HKT) March 12, 2020
01 global pandemic


Big efforts to keep travelers safe from coronavirus
A completely empty San Marco Square is seen on March 9, 2020 in Venice, Italy. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced a "national emergency" due to the coronavirus outbreak and imposed quarantines on the Lombardy and Veneto regions, which contain roughly a quarter of the country's population. Italy has the highest number of cases and fatalities in Europe. 
The movements in and out are allowed only for work reasons, health reasons proven by a medical certificate.The justifications for the movements needs to be certified with a self-declaration by filling in forms provided by the police forces in charge of the checks.
(Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images)
See life under lockdown in Italy
Ivan Watson in Seoul, South Korea.
Coronavirus will probably affect you. How you can prepare

Japanese government under scrutiny for handling of coronavirus
This scanning electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 (yellow)—also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19—isolated from a patient in the U.S., emerging from the surface of cells (blue/pink) cultured in the lab. Credit: NIAID-RML
How we can fight the coronavirus
South Korean Health Minister Park Neung-Hu..
Health minister hopes South Korea has 'passed the peak' of outbreak

Church attendance hit hard in Italy by lockdown
Fujian Fire Department rescued an infant at 00:16 March 8th from the debris of a hotel in southeastern China's Quanzhou city. The hotel has been used as coronavirus quarantine center.

Minutes later, the infant boy's father and mother were rescued and sent to hospital, Fujian Fire Department said.

According to staff from Ministry of Emergency of Management on the ground, the infant has vital signs when he was sent to the hospital.
Rescue underway after hotel collapse in China
01 global pandemic
What are pandemics? Can they be stopped?

Inside the company that used AI to create a coronavirus test
coronavirus outbreak china wuhan residents anger culver pkg intl ldn vpx_00013621.jpg
Wuhan resident: 'Everyone is outraged' over coronavirus
coronavirus outbreak uk preparations boris johnson intl ldn vpx_00005226.jpg
See how the UK is preparing for coronavirus outbreak
italy lockdown wedeman pkg
How Italy's lockdown is affecting daily life
A picture taken on March 10, 2020 shows a deserted Via del Corso shopping street near Piazza del Popolo in Rome after Italy imposed unprecedented national restrictions on its 60 million people Tuesday to control the deadly COVID-19 coronavirus. (Photo by Tiziana FABI / AFP) (Photo by TIZIANA FABI/AFP via Getty Images)
How coronavirus could lead some countries into recession
Chinese President Xi Jinping in Wuhan
Xi visits Wuhan as China inches back to 'new normal'
A child suffering from cerebral palsy celebrates Holi, the spring festival of colours, during an event origanized by Trishla Foundation, a non-profit organisation for cerebral palsy treatment, in Allahabad on March 6, 2020. (Photo by SANJAY KANOJIA / AFP) (Photo by SANJAY KANOJIA/AFP via Getty Images)
Face masks and rainbows as Holi is celebrated

Big efforts to keep travelers safe from coronavirus
A completely empty San Marco Square is seen on March 9, 2020 in Venice, Italy. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced a "national emergency" due to the coronavirus outbreak and imposed quarantines on the Lombardy and Veneto regions, which contain roughly a quarter of the country's population. Italy has the highest number of cases and fatalities in Europe. 
The movements in and out are allowed only for work reasons, health reasons proven by a medical certificate.The justifications for the movements needs to be certified with a self-declaration by filling in forms provided by the police forces in charge of the checks.
(Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images)
See life under lockdown in Italy
Ivan Watson in Seoul, South Korea.
Coronavirus will probably affect you. How you can prepare

Japanese government under scrutiny for handling of coronavirus
This scanning electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 (yellow)—also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19—isolated from a patient in the U.S., emerging from the surface of cells (blue/pink) cultured in the lab. Credit: NIAID-RML
How we can fight the coronavirus
South Korean Health Minister Park Neung-Hu..
Health minister hopes South Korea has 'passed the peak' of outbreak

Church attendance hit hard in Italy by lockdown
Fujian Fire Department rescued an infant at 00:16 March 8th from the debris of a hotel in southeastern China's Quanzhou city. The hotel has been used as coronavirus quarantine center.

Minutes later, the infant boy's father and mother were rescued and sent to hospital, Fujian Fire Department said.

According to staff from Ministry of Emergency of Management on the ground, the infant has vital signs when he was sent to the hospital.
Rescue underway after hotel collapse in China
01 global pandemic
What are pandemics? Can they be stopped?

Inside the company that used AI to create a coronavirus test
coronavirus outbreak china wuhan residents anger culver pkg intl ldn vpx_00013621.jpg
Wuhan resident: 'Everyone is outraged' over coronavirus
coronavirus outbreak uk preparations boris johnson intl ldn vpx_00005226.jpg
See how the UK is preparing for coronavirus outbreak
italy lockdown wedeman pkg
How Italy's lockdown is affecting daily life
A picture taken on March 10, 2020 shows a deserted Via del Corso shopping street near Piazza del Popolo in Rome after Italy imposed unprecedented national restrictions on its 60 million people Tuesday to control the deadly COVID-19 coronavirus. (Photo by Tiziana FABI / AFP) (Photo by TIZIANA FABI/AFP via Getty Images)
How coronavirus could lead some countries into recession
Chinese President Xi Jinping in Wuhan
Xi visits Wuhan as China inches back to 'new normal'
A child suffering from cerebral palsy celebrates Holi, the spring festival of colours, during an event origanized by Trishla Foundation, a non-profit organisation for cerebral palsy treatment, in Allahabad on March 6, 2020. (Photo by SANJAY KANOJIA / AFP) (Photo by SANJAY KANOJIA/AFP via Getty Images)
Face masks and rainbows as Holi is celebrated
(CNN)The World Health Organization on Wednesday declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.

There are 118,000 cases, more than 4,000 deaths, the agency said, and the virus has found a foothold on every continent except for Antarctica.

"We have never before seen a pandemic sparked by a coronavirus. And we have never before seen a pandemic that can be controlled at the same time," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday.
"Describing the situation as a pandemic does not change WHO's assessment of the threat posed by this coronavirus. It doesn't change what WHO is doing, and it doesn't change what countries should do."
Why CNN is calling the novel coronavirus outbreak a pandemic
Why CNN is calling the novel coronavirus outbreak a pandemic

I
f countries detect, test, treat, isolate, trace and mobilize their people in the response, those with a handful of novel coronavirus cases can prevent those cases becoming clusters, and those clusters becoming community transmission, Ghebreyesus said.
"Several countries have demonstrated that this virus can be suppressed and controlled," Ghebreyesus said.
A pandemic is defined as the "worldwide spread" of a new disease. Whereas, an outbreak is the occurrence of disease cases in excess of what's normally expected and an epidemic is more than a normal number cases of an illness, specific health-related behavior or other health-related events in a community or region, according to the World Health Organization.
In January, the WHO declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. CNN announced on Monday that it is using the term pandemic to describe the current coronavirus outbreak.
The last pandemic reported in the world was the H1N1 flu pandemic in 2009, which killed hundreds of thousands globally.
Coronavirus outbreak has 'pandemic potential' but it's not there yet, WHO says
Coronavirus outbreak has 'pandemic potential' but it's not there yet, WHO says
"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," Ghebreyesus said of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
"We cannot say this loudly enough, or clearly enough, or often enough: All countries can still change the course of this pandemic."
Pandemics of the past
Pandemics have been a part of human history for centuries, with one of the earliest ever reported dating back to 1580. Since then, at least four pandemics of influenza occurred in the 19th century and three occurred in the 20th century, according to the CDC.
What we can learn 100 years later from the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic
What we can learn 100 years later from the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic
The most severe pandemic in recent history was the 1918 influenza pandemic, sometimes referred to as the "Spanish flu." The pandemic was estimated to have infected about 500 million people or one-third of the world's population and killed some 50 million worldwide.
There remains some debate about where this H1N1 flu virus originated, but scientists have found that the virus had genes of avian origin. In other words, it had a connection to birds.
More American soldiers died from the 1918 flu pandemic than were killed in battle during World War I in 1918, according to the CDC. In 1919, the pandemic subsided but the H1N1 virus continued to circulate seasonally for 38 years.
Your flu risk may be linked to the year you were born
Your flu risk may be linked to the year you were born
Then in 1957, a novel influenza A H2N2 virus emerged in East Asia, triggering a pandemic that is estimated to have killed 1.1 million worldwide and 116,000 in the United States. The virus was comprised of genes that could be linked to an avian influenza A virus, suggesting it had a connection to birds.
The virus was first reported in Singapore in February 1957, Hong Kong in April 1957, and in coastal cities in the United States in the summer of that same year. Yet its survival in the human population was short and the virus disappeared about a decade after its arrival. Some scientists suggest that it was supplanted by a H3N2 subtype.
In 1968, a pandemic caused by an influenza A H3N2 virus that originated in China swept the world. That virus was comprised of two genes from an avian influenza A virus, according to the CDC.
The virus was first noted in the United States in September 1968 and led to about 100,000 deaths nationwide and 1 million worldwide. Most excess deaths were in adults 65 and older, according to the CDC.
The H3N2 virus continues to circulate globally as a seasonal flu virus.
Everything you need to know about the H1N1 influenza virus pandemic
Everything you need to know about the H1N1 influenza virus pandemic
In the spring of 2009, a novel influenza A H1N1 virus emerged. It was detected first in the United States and then spread quickly across the world.
The virus contained "a unique combination of influenza genes not previously identified in animals or people," according to the CDC. It was found to be of swine origin.
During that H1N1 pandemic, the CDC estimated that somewhere between 151,700 and 575,400 people died worldwide during the first year the virus circulated. Globally, 80% of the deaths were estimated to have occurred in people younger than 65.
The World Health Organization declared the global H1N1 pandemic over in August 2010, but the H1N1 virus continues to circulate as a seasonal flu virus every year.
Get CNN Health's weekly newsletter
Sign up here to get The Results Are In with Dr. Sanjay Gupta every Tuesday from the CNN Health team.

Now in early 2020, the world has been waiting to see whether the novel coronavirus would become a pandemic.
"This is unprecedented," Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the CDC, wrote in an article published on CNN.com in February.
"Other than influenza, no other respiratory virus has been tracked from emergence to continuous global spread. The last moderately severe influenza pandemics were in 1957 and 1968; each killed more than a million people around the world," Frieden wrote. "Although we are far more prepared than in the past, we are also far more interconnected, and many more people today have chronic health problems that make viral infections particularly dangerous."

No comments:

Post a Comment