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The World Health Organisation has now characterised COVID-19 as a pandemic.
Prof David Heymann, Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said:
“The WHO Director General has indicated that the reason for the announcement of a pandemic was because of inaction and uncontained spread. Many countries were waiting to hear the announcement of a pandemic – it is important now for them to collect the evidence of what has been done since the announcement to determine whether the goal of WHO has been met.”
Biological Anthropologist Dr Jennifer Cole, Royal Holloway, University of London, said:
“All pandemic means is that the disease is in ‘all people’ – literal translation. In WHO terms, there is recognised widespread person-to-person transmission in several countries. It does not change the severity of the disease or (necessarily) the way it should be approached, it is a measure of quantity of cases more than anything. A ‘pandemic’ will not be characterised until this is clearly the case – which there now is – though it may previously have been clear that it was inevitable (and indeed, several people from the healthcare sector and government have been saying this for some time). The is the end of the ‘watching brief’ period in which countries should be preparing for a pandemic, and should now be enacting pandemic preparedness plans.
“WHO has been reluctant to use the term ‘pandemic’ during this outbreak as they were criticised for doing so during the Swine Flu pandemic because cases were mild, even though the severity of the disease makes no difference to how widespread it is. There used to be distinct phases (1-6) of a pandemic but following Swine Flu this was reimagined as a ‘continuum’ – shown here https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/planning-preparedness/global-planning-508.html or here https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/259893/WHO-WHE-IHM-GIP-2017.1-eng.pdf;jsessionid=E14CBBECA9D7317A3E93B3833ECD92BD?sequence=1 where there is not such a clear distinction between one phase and another – which may be more appropriate as different countries and regions can be in different stages of the continuum simultaneously. Countries are encouraged to make their own decision on whether the outbreak constitutes enactment of their pandemic preparedness strategies (e.g. largescale lockdowns, school closures etc.) or not and to enact national plans accordingly.
“The move from pre-pandemic to pandemic cases can (and has been in the past) been interpreted as a point at which containment in a single region or regions is no longer possible. This can encourage loosening of quarantines, border controls, contact tracing, testing etc., as it may be thought there is little value in continuing with these measures. HOWEVER, in the case of COVID19, due to the reasonably large number of severe cases in the high risk groups (over 70s and immunocompromised) there is value in continuing with containment measures as these will still be able to slow spread, even if they cannot stop it, and this will help to ease the pressure on the healthcare system over time – e.g. ‘Flattening the Curve’ (https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=pPF-DQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR3&dq=Jennifer+cole+communications+in+a+health+emergency+Sellwood+Wapling&ots=ToXKtlrKMR&sig=2OLBRdVJHD2-e3qY4aK1d2s5sX4&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false), by reducing the number of simultaneous cases (and thus hospitalisations) even if the cumulative number of cases is high.”
Prof Paul Hunter, Professor in Medicine, UEA, said:
“The fact that the WHO have now started calling the current epidemic a pandemic is not a major change in policy but rather a recognition that the disease is now spreading globally. The very rapid increase in cases seen in several European countries including Italy, Spain, France and Germany and in the United States and Iran this past few days show sustained person-to-person spread across multiple countries in several different regions. This increasing evidence clearly indicates that we now have a pandemic.
“But no one, not even WHO, declares a pandemic. It is only a description of the nature of the global spread of the epidemic. Whether the WHO calls an epidemic, a pandemic or not has no direct consequences. The important step was when the epidemic was declared a public health emergency of international concern which WHO did on the 30th January.”
Dr Jeremy Farrar, Director of Wellcome, said:
“The WHO is right to declare this a pandemic. We are in extraordinary times, the continued rapid spread of this virus is extremely challenging to control and poses an unprecedented global challenge.
“The COVID-19 outbreak is not just a public health crisis, it’s a global crisis – of health, economics and politics. This requires an immediate response co-ordinated by the WHO, with the full support of the international community. Infectious diseases do not respect borders. We need sustained and co-ordinated action by all governments and global institutions if we are to avert long-term catastrophe worldwide.
“Over recent weeks the World Health Organization and many governments around the world have acted decisively, every country must now follow their lead. The crucial public health measures taken by some have undoubtedly reduced the impact of this virus and bought everyone critical time. But now everyone, everywhere must use this short window of opportunity to intensify and maximise all efforts to contain this virus, prepare our health systems and communities for the inevitable impact.
“The decisions made in the coming days and weeks will be crucial. We can still change the course of this pandemic. We offer our very strongest support to the WHO and the health workers working tirelessly on behalf of us all. We can reduce the impact of this pandemic and save lives around the world. But it needs all of us.”
Dr Ed Wright, Senior Lecturer in Microbiology, University of Sussex, said:
“The announcement from the WHO that SARS-CoV-2 is a pandemic does not change anything. 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. However, these strategies are only effective if we all follow them so let’s act more as a community rather than individuals.”
Prof Devi Sridhar, Professor of Global Public Health, University of Edinburgh, said:
“WHO has finally said COVID-19 can be characterised as a pandemic. All countries need to continue their emergency response mechanisms, find, isolate, test and treat every COVID-19 case and trace every contact, ready their health services for an increase in patients, and train health workers. This is the highest level of alert that we have for infectious disease outbreaks, and a designation that is rarely used. It’s also worth paying attention to countries who claim not to have any coronavirus cases or deaths, and whether they might be calling it viral pneumonia, or labelling it differently.”
Prof Mark Woolhouse, Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, said:
“The World Health Organisation has now confirmed that COVID-19 is a pandemic. The statement also says that this does not change their advice on how to respond and that “urgent and aggressive” action is required by countries with significant outbreaks. An important word missing from that statement is “sustainable”. It is now clear that COVID-19 is going to be with us for a considerable length of time and the actions that we take must be actions that we can live with for a prolonged period.”
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.”
Dr Nathalie MacDermott, NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer, King’s College London, said:
“The World Health Organisation have decided that the SARS-COV2 epidemic now warrants being referred to as a pandemic. This decision will likely have been made on the basis of the majority of the world’s continents now seeing significant and ongoing person to person spread of SARS-COV2. The change of term does not alter anything practically as the world has been advised for the last few weeks to prepare for a potential pandemic, which has hopefully been taken seriously by all countries. The use of this term however highlights the importance of countries throughout the world working cooperatively and openly with one another and coming together as a united front in our efforts to bring this situation under control.”
* https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1237777021742338049?s=20
All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:
http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19
The SMC also produced a Factsheet on COVID-19 which is available here:
https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/smc-novel-coronavirus-factsheet/
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