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The World Health Organization on Wednesday declared the coronavirus a pandemic.
“All countries can still change the course of this pandemic. If countries detect, test, treat, isolate, trace and mobilize their people in the response,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “We are deeply concerned by the alarming levels of spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction.”
With the discovery of the 2019 coronavirus, initially called 2019-nCoV and rebranded as COVID-19, health experts have now identified at least seven strains of the virus that can infect humans. The last pandemic declared by WHO was the H1N1 flu outbreak in 2009, which lasted one year and two months and killed anywhere from 151,700 to 575,400 people.
By comparison, more than 121,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 4,300 have died in more than 120 countries in the COVID-19 outbreak since December, according to the latest data from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
In the U.S., the caseload on Wednesday passed 1,100, as outbreaks on both sides of the country are forcing public gathering moratoriums, as well as concert and event cancellations and postponements; at the same time, many American companies are encouraging employees to work remotely.
Several Bay Area counties make up some of the cases reported, with Santa Clara County officials confirming at least 45 cases, Contra Costa County officials declaring at least 10 cases and Alameda County reporting at least two patients.
The vast majority of people infected by the coronavirus recover. According to the WHO, people with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may need three to six weeks to recover.
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