The WHO have said many times that governments can stop this disease by containing the virus swiftly and aggressively. Their most recent statement was the most blunt yet. They declared a pandemic, but one that we can stop. They said the question is not whether we can, but whether we will. Many governments have demonstrated this by doing it, including China, South Korea and Singapore. As Dr Tedros, Director General of the WHO put it:

The challenge for many countries who are now dealing with large clusters or community transmission is not whether they can do the same – it’s whether they will.  

Summary: This declaration of a pandemic does not mean that we should say the fight is over - that would lead to unnecessary suffering and death.

With every press conference, the WHO have called on countries to take urgent and aggressive action and this hasn’t changed.

More than 90% of the cases are in just four countries (Iran, Italy, SK and China). Two of those four countries have significantly declining cases (South Korea and China)

81 countries have no cases yet, and 57 have 10 or less.

All countries can still turn the tide on this virus, even ones with community transmission or large clusters. Several countries have shown the virus can be suppressed and controlled.

The WHO continue to say that the coronavirus can be controlled, and is being brought under control. The evidence from China is clear - not only from their statistics but also the report of the international team that spend nine days studying the worst hit areas of China in person.

South Korea has the fewest cases today for two weeks at a total of over 7000 cases which proves that it is not just China that is able to contain and stop the virus at thousands of cases. By using the same measures of fast case finding, contact tracing, quarantine and isolation, combined with public awareness and hand hygiene, we can all slow and even reverse and stop this virus.

This is the news that they are not really sharing on mainstream TV: China is containing this outbreak. The screenshot shows figures for one of the other provinces, Henan province, right next to the worst affected province Hubei. Meanwhile China as a whole reported only 329 new cases on thursday, the lowest number for over a month. This would not happen for a pandemic, so it is not a pandemic yet.

The WHO say that if we act promptly it will never be a pandemic. The course of this disease is under our control.

skip to: Why this is not a pandemic

This is puzzling many people. COVID19 is now in every continent. So why don't they call COVID19 a pandemic? You are right, if a flu outbreak got this far, the WHO would say it is a pandemic, for sure, indeed they would have called it a global pandemic weeks ago.

Definition: a pandemic (as the WHO use the word) is a disease that is spreading by community transmission throughout the world with no possibility of stopping it by quarantine. A viral pandemic can only be stopped with vaccines. Meanwhile you do your best to protect the most vulnerable from it.

Short summary: Soleimani is an Iranian leader, who is highly respected in Iran, and played a key role in the fight against ISIS. However, he was classified by the US as terrorist because of his position as leader of the Quds, a numerically small black ops type operations supplying weapons to shia militants and the mastermind of operations targeting US soldiers and civilians.

Here is my short tweet about it