Medical experts: WHO announcement Covid-19 is a pandemic changes nothing, whether it’s an outbreak, epidemic or pandemic, virus still poses very significant risk to global public

Dr Ed Wright, Senior Lecturer in Microbiology at the University of Sussex has said that the announcement from the WHO that Covid-19 is a pandemic does not change anything. He stated that whether it’s referred to as an outbreak, epidemic or pandemic this virus still poses the same very significant risk to global public and the advice provided to try and minimise the number of cases is still valid.

Dr Michael Head, Senior Research Fellow in Global Health, University of Southampton, said, “The World Health Organisation stated that some countries are struggling with a lack of resources, but also ‘a lack of resolve’. This is clearly a direct indication that they consider many countries have been slow to scale up their responses.”

“The characterisation of the situation as a pandemic may mean that we see countries feel incentivised to implement further larger interventions, such as banning of public gatherings, sooner than would they were otherwise planning to.”