There’s a good chance you’ve heard of Coronavirus by now. It’s the disease that originated in Wuhan, China, and as I write over 8000 cases have been confirmed in 19 countries. Most cases are in China, where 170 people so far have died. In a pretty big move, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has just declared Coronavirus a global health emergency. Here’s what that means.
According to the World Health Organisation’s definition, for a Public Health Emergency Of International Concern (PHEIC) to be declared the disease must be “an extraordinary event which is determined to constitute a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease and to potentially require a coordinated international response.”
Making the announcement that Coronavirus fit that criteria in a press conference, director general of the WHO, Dr Tedros Adhanom, said that:
“The main reason is not because of what is happening in China, but because of what is happening in other countries. Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to other countries with weaker health systems, which are ill prepared to deal with it.”
After making the declaration, the WHO is now allowed to make recommendations about how to control the spread of Coronavirus. Their advice so far is for China to keep doing what they’re doing, because despite what people seem to think they’ve actually locked down pretty hard on measures to make sure it spreads as little as possible.
For other countries, they suggest that “countries should be prepared for containment, including active surveillance, early detection, isolation and case management, contact tracing and prevention of onward spread of [coronavirus] infection.”
Listen to the GOAT team chat about the Coronavirus emergency and what could come.
Since 2009, there have been five other declarations of global health emergencies.
- Swine Flu in 2009
- Ebola in West Africa in 2014
- Polio resurgence in 2014
- Zika Virus in 2016
- Ebola in the Democratic Republic Of Congo in 2019
The virus shows no sign of slowing down yet, so while influencers aren’t exactly taking it seriously, the rest of the world is getting prepared for it to get worse before it gets better. We haven’t maxed out the doom scale just yet, but this is a pretty scary step up.
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