WHO characterizes COVID-19 outbreak as pandemic

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday that the COVID-19 outbreak can be characterized as a "pandemic" as the virus spreads increasingly worldwide.

"We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference.

"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," he said.

Tedros said describing the situation as a pandemic does not change the WHO's assessment of the threat posed by the novel coronavirus and it doesn't change what the WHO is doing and countries should do.