It’s been more than a year since the outbreak of the Corona Virus and the outbreak of a global pandemic. The term Pandemic has been coined so many times in the past few months but since when covid-19 was declared as the pandemic and what does it mean? The World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020, declared that the virus-COVID-19 is an outbreak of a global pandemic. After recording the cases from China, WHO concluded that the spread of the virus is rapid and to keep the situation under control then made the announcement. Declaring at COVID-19 as a pandemic, WHO also noted that over 118,000 cases of the coronavirus in over 110 countries and territories around the world have been recorded in the beginning and thus the situation is considered very risky and dangerous to live in many regions.
What exactly is a pandemic?
The term pandemic defines the spread of a throughout a particular territory or a large region that has been proved harmful to a large number of people. We have faced many pandemic diseases before which include smallpox, tuberculosis plague, and much more. Before the outbreak of the coronavirus, the plague was considered to be one of the deadliest diseases ever found as the fatal pandemic caused the death of many people in the 14th century. The COVID-19 virus started to spread across several international boundaries, affecting people on a worldwide scale and is considered to be an easily spreadable disease that is infectious, the virus was announced as a pandemic. Any normal disease that leads to few death cases is not considered a pandemic until and unless it is contagious and infectious. Like for example cancer is a deadly disease but has never been considered a pandemic by WHO.
What did WHO exactly announce?
Well when WHO announced the virus as a pandemic it did not come as a huge surprise to the public as already the talk was going on and the news channels were predicting it. Initially, the Covid-19 coronavirus infection emerged in Wuhan, China, and WHO was alerted regarding the cases. On 5 January 2020, WHO announced that countries should apply travel restrictions, especially to China. However, the count of positive cases kept increasing in different countries WHO took the required measure and passed the guidelines to countries. The declaration by CDC said that the viruses can infect people easily and spread from person to person in an efficient and sustained way in multiple regions. WHO officials maintained that COVID-19 had “pandemic potential” before then described it as a pandemic.
Declaration of the pandemic:
Dr. Tedros on March 11 spoke “Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly. It is a word that, if misused, can cause unreasonable fear, or unjustified acceptance that the fight is over, leading to unnecessary suffering and death.” Now the vaccines are out and the government in all the countries are trying its best to provide vaccines for every citizen. Hopefully, conditions get better soon and the country is back on track as before is what many netizens have been quoting for months now.
