We may be on the brink of a coronavirus pandemic. Here’s what that means

By Jonathan Lambert
10 HOURS AGO
The coronavirus outbreak that began late last year in China has now spread to 29 countries, touching every continent except South America and Antarctica. While the vast majority of cases are still in China, the virus is gaining a foothold in other countries, raising fears the world is on the brink of a pandemic. South Korea has seen nearly 1,000 people sickened just in the last week, while Italian health officials say 229 people nationwide have recently been diagnosed with the disease, now called COVID-19 (SN: 1/29/20).
But who decides what counts as a pandemic, and what does that mean? Here’s what we know so far.

What is a pandemic?

According to the World Health Organization, a pandemic is the worldwide spread of a new disease. It’s most often used in reference to influenza, and generally connotes that an epidemic has spread to two or more continents with sustained, person-to-person transmission.
The severity of illness doesn’t fall under the WHO’s strict definition of a pandemic — just the disease’s spread — though the WHO may take the overall burden of the disease into account before declaring a pandemic. As the top global health agency, the WHO is relied upon to be the first to make the pandemic declaration.

Is COVID-19 a pandemic?

Despite the global reach of the disease, the WHO has so far declined to declare COVID-19 a pandemic.
“For the moment, we are not witnessing the uncontained global spread of this virus, and we are not witnessing large-scale severe death or disease,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a news conference February 24.
“Does this virus have pandemic potential? Absolutely,” Ghebreyesus said. “Are we there yet? From our assessment, not yet.”
Read more:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/what-coronavirus-pandemic-would-mean-outbreak-epidemic-who