Why WHO has not declared Coronavirus as a pandemic

As of February 28, the novel Coronavirus has already killed 2,788, while close to 80,000 have been infected by the virus worldwide. The virus has spread over a large number of countries, New Zealand being the latest. Despite that the World Health Organisation has not labelled it as a pandemic yet.

The new Coronavirus is still being called an epidemic.

There exists a clear difference between an epidemic and a pandemic. Pandemic is the spread of a disease across a large region while epidemic is widespread occurrence of a disease in a particular region.


What WHO said
On Coronavirus, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on February 26 said: "The increase in cases outside China has prompted some media and politicians to push for a pandemic to be declared. We should not be too eager to declare a pandemic without a careful and clear-minded analysis of the facts...Using the word pandemic carelessly has no tangible benefit, but it does have significant risk in terms of amplifying unnecessary and unjustified fear and stigma, and paralyzing systems."

"Of course, we will not hesitate to use the word pandemic if it is an accurate description of the situation...we are saying that this virus has pandemic potential and WHO is providing the tools for every country to prepare accordingly."

WHO, however, acknowledged that the new strain of virus has all the potential to be a pandemic. More cases are emerging now and the fatality rate is showing no signs of easing.