Coronavirus Is a Pandemic, the WHO Says, Calling Out ‘Alarming’ Inaction

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Photograph by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

12:50 p.m. It’s official. The World Health Organization has made the call that the Covid-19 outbreak is a global pandemic, and flagged “alarming levels of inaction.”

“Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus , the WHO’s director-general, said at a news conference. “It is a word that, if misused, can cause unreasonable fear, or unjustified acceptance that the fight is over, leading to unnecessary suffering and death.”