"The COVID-19 epidemic can be called a pandemic in terms of characteristics." On March 11th, local time, at a regular press conference held in Geneva, Switzerland, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, announced this judgment, which attracted global attention.
WHO defines pandemic as "the widespread spread of a new disease around the world". At the end of January, WHO declared the COVID-19 epidemic as a "public health emergency of international concern", and now it has been declared as a global pandemic, which means that the global spread of the virus has not been curbed, and the severity and difficulty of response have increased.
The alarm bell has sounded, and the global anti-epidemic has reached a critical moment. In a speech, UN Secretary-General Guterres said that this announcement by WHO is a "clarion call for global action". In the face of the epidemic, it is urgent for all countries to join hands to fight.
What is a pandemic?
In 2010, the WHO website gave a simple definition of pandemic, that is, a new disease spread around the world. Among them, influenza pandemic refers to the spread of influenza virus around the world, and most people have no immunity to the virus.
Prevalence, infectivity and trans-regionality — — According to the standards currently adopted by WHO, a pandemic must meet these three conditions. The pandemics recognized by WHO or recognized by history mainly include the Black Death in 14th century, smallpox at the end of 19th century, and Spanish influenza in 1918. The latest pandemic recognized by WHO was the outbreak of influenza A (H1N1) from the United States and Mexico in 2009, which affected 214 countries and regions around the world for 16 months, infected at least 60 million people and caused 18,500 deaths.
Pandemic is not a strict definition, but a vague concept; The main consideration in defining a pandemic is not the virulence and mortality of the virus, but the scope of the virus. WHO originally divided the influenza warning level into six levels, of which five to six levels were human-to-human transmission worldwide, and the highest level was influenza pandemic, which indicated that an influenza virus broke out at the community level in at least one country outside the origin of the epidemic and posed a global spread threat.
In an interview with the media in late February, Jasarevic, a spokesperson for WHO, said that at present, WHO no longer uses six-level classification to evaluate infectious diseases such as influenza, but has changed to four stages: intermittent phase, alert phase, pandemic phase and transition phase.
In that case, why did WHO still declare COVID-19 as the first "pandemic" coronavirus infectious disease?
Margaret Harris, a spokeswoman for WHO, once said, "If the epidemic trend in novel coronavirus meets the standards of previous pandemics, WHO may use ‘ in communication; Pandemic ’ The word ",and the current epidemic situation has met the epidemiological conditions that constitute a global pandemic. At the same time, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also gave the judgment basis at the regular press conference on March 11th: first, based on the current spread speed, scale and severity of the virus; second, there are still countries that have not paid enough attention to and failed to prevent and control the major epidemic.
The global epidemic situation is worrying. In the past two weeks, the number of confirmed cases in COVID-19 outside China has increased by 13 times, and the number of affected countries and regions has increased by 2 times; At present, there are more than 125,000 confirmed cases and more than 5,000 deaths in more than 120 countries and regions. In the next few weeks, it is expected that the number of confirmed cases, deaths and the number of affected countries and regions will further increase.
In addition to the epidemic itself, the current lack of prevention and control in some countries has made the international community more worried. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on March 10th that the number of confirmed cases in COVID-19 in China has obviously decreased recently, the situation of China epidemic has been reversed, and the virus is retreating. WHO has repeatedly called on the international community to make full use of the "window of opportunity" won by China to curb the spread of the virus as soon as possible, but some countries have not grasped this window well.
The pandemic sounded the alarm.
According to WHO’s daily epidemic report, as of 10: 00 central European time (17: 00 Beijing time) on March 12, the number of confirmed cases in COVID-19 outside China increased by 6,703 compared with the previous day, reaching 44,067; The number of deaths increased by 310 compared with the previous day, reaching 1440.
The global epidemic situation is grim, and the alarm is "loud and clear". The cumulative number of confirmed cases in European countries exceeded 30,000, and confirmed cases occurred in 27 countries of the European Union, among which the number of Italian infected people exceeded 15,000, and the cumulative number of deaths exceeded 1,000. Italian Prime Minister Conte announced on the evening of March 9, local time: starting from March 10, Italy will implement a nationwide city closure ban, and asked all commercial activities in Italy to stop except pharmacies and supermarkets that supply daily necessities. The number of infected people in France, Spain and Germany has also risen rapidly. As of March 12, the total number of confirmed cases in the three countries has exceeded 8,000.
"No EU country has responded to the Commission’s appeal. This does not bode well for European unity. " On March 10th, Mauricio Massari, Italian ambassador to the EU, published a signed article criticizing the EU and its member States for their slow assistance. "The Covid-19 crisis is not just a matter for a certain country, it is a ‘ European crisis ’ 。”
After it was revealed by the media last week that German customs intercepted a batch of masks in Switzerland, Germany once again seized a batch of gloves that should have been shipped to Switzerland this week. The situation that the EU member states are fighting each other will undoubtedly increase the difficulty of fighting the epidemic. On the evening of March 10th, local time, the heads of state of EU member states held a video conference to reflect on the current situation of ineffective response to the epidemic and discuss the next steps, and identified four urgent tasks, including limiting the spread of the virus and ensuring the supply of medical equipment, and set up an investment fund with a total amount of 25 billion euros to fight the epidemic.
In the United States, located on the other side of the Atlantic, the epidemic situation is also not optimistic. On March 12th, the three major stock indexes of new york stock market plunged at the opening of the day, with a drop of more than 7%. The plunge caused the US stock market to trigger the fuse mechanism again and suspend trading for 15 minutes. The soaring number of confirmed cases and the "avalanche" in the capital market are disintegrating the previous optimism in the United States.
On March 11, US President Trump delivered a national speech, announcing the US-Europe travel ban and canceling the campaign to be held in Colorado and Nevada. At the same time, the panic and dissatisfaction in American society are growing day by day, and the criticism of the government’s inaction in dealing with the epidemic is one after another. Robert redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a congressional hearing on March 10th that some parts of the United States have missed the window of opportunity to contain the epidemic. When asked by Congressman Harley Rhoda that "some people in the United States may have died of flu on the surface, but in fact they may have died in COVID-19", redfield confirmed the above situation for the first time.
The epidemic situation in the Middle East continues to spread. More than 10,000 cases have been diagnosed in Iran, the "hardest hit area", and many political figures have been recruited one after another, including two vice presidents. On March 11th, the epidemic situation in Qatar, which faces Iran across the sea, took a turn for the worse, announcing a sudden increase of 238 confirmed cases in a single day, increasing the number of confirmed cases from more than 20 to 263, making it the country with the largest number of confirmed cases in the Middle East except Iran. The number of new cases in South Korea and Japan began to decline, and the prevention and control measures have achieved initial results, but they have not been completely contained. According to the report of the Central Epidemic Prevention Countermeasures Headquarters of South Korea, as of 0: 00 local time on March 13th, South Korea has added 110 confirmed cases in the past 24 hours, with a total of 7979 confirmed cases. As of 10: 30 local time on March 13th, the number of confirmed cases in COVID-19 in Japan has increased to 690, and there are 697 confirmed cases on the cruise ship "Diamond Princess" docked in Yokohama, Japan.
This time, COVID-19 is the first coronavirus infectious disease known as pandemic in history. In 1965, British scientist Terry discovered coronavirus in the experiment of 20,000 volunteers voluntarily catching cold, and this virus is the chief culprit of a series of infectious diseases such as influenza. At present, seven kinds of pathogenic coronaviruses have been found in human beings, including SARS in 2003, which was transmitted to humans by the atypical pneumonia virus carried by bats through the intermediate host civet cats; In 2012, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus was hosted by camels, and it was brought back to South Korea by a Korean after the outbreak in the Middle East, causing large-scale spread. At the end of 2019, the coronavirus once again came to the fore.
However, while the world is concentrating on fighting the COVID-19 epidemic, some countries are still neglecting to respond, and even busy "throwing the pot" to blame, attacking and discrediting, failing to make effective use of precious window time, which is also one of the reasons why the global epidemic has become more severe. Faced with the virus threat full of unknowns and changes, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has repeatedly stressed that all countries "need facts, not fears", "need science, not rumors" and "need unity, not stigma".
How does the world respond?
"People have never paid so much attention to a word (pandemic). Let me give you some more important and feasible words: prevention, preparedness, public health, political leadership, and most importantly, people. " WHO said that calling this epidemic a pandemic will not change what WHO is doing or what countries should do.
WHO summarizes the overall strategy that countries must adopt to prevent infection, save lives and minimize the impact into four main points: preparation, response at any time, detection, protection and treatment, reduction of transmission, and innovation and learning. According to the "Prevention and Response to Pandemic Influenza" previously published by WHO, if the epidemic enters the pandemic stage, WHO and governments should take a series of countermeasures, including strengthening cooperation between national health institutions and international organizations, sharing information, providing humanitarian assistance to countries with insufficient medical resources, accelerating vaccine research and development and approval of antiviral drugs, taking measures to reduce or suspend activities that cause public gathering, and issuing travel warnings.
Describing COVID-19 epidemic with pandemic does not mean that the epidemic is out of control. On the contrary, thanks to strict and proven measures taken by some countries, including China, WHO says that countries can not only change the course of COVID-19 pandemic, but it will be the first controllable pandemic in history.
"This epidemic has made us deeply realize that the world is a whole, and countries depend on each other and only sweep ‘ Snow in front of your house ’ It won’t work. " Professor Jin Canrong, deputy dean of the School of International Studies at Renmin University of China, said in an interview that the international community must jointly prevent and control the epidemic, strengthen mutual assistance and cooperation in scientific research, epidemic monitoring, information sharing and medical assistance, and build a community of destiny to fight the epidemic.
In this regard, China has put it into action. At 22: 31 local time on March 12th (at 5: 31 Beijing time on the 13th), a 9-member expert group formed by the National Health and Wellness Commission and the China Red Cross flew from Shanghai to fiumicino Airport in Rome with 31 tons of medical supplies, after more than 10 hours’ flight, to support the prevention and control of the epidemic in COVID-19. This is the third team of medical experts sent by China after supporting Iran and Iraq.
After the outbreak, China released information openly and transparently, took the initiative to share the virus gene sequence with other countries in time, and gained valuable time for the international community to fight the epidemic through strong prevention and control measures; When the epidemic situation showed a positive trend and the prevention and control measures achieved good results, China sent anti-epidemic expert groups to Iran, Iraq and Italy, and provided anti-epidemic materials such as masks, medicines and protective clothing to Japan and South Korea. The government of China has also donated 20 million US dollars to the World Health Organization to export much-needed medical materials and equipment to some countries, and local governments and non-governmental organizations have also lent a helping hand to other countries.
Countries take corresponding prevention and control measures according to their national conditions, and the "China experience" can help countries to take less detours. Bruce Aylward, the foreign leader of the China-WHO joint expert inspection team in COVID-19, said that China is currently the country with the most experience and achievements in dealing with the COVID-19 epidemic in the world; China’s anti-epidemic methods can be replicated. With China’s experience, other countries don’t have to start from scratch.
On March 12th, the National Health and Wellness Commission and the World Health Organization jointly held an international briefing on sharing the experience of preventing and treating China in COVID-19 by multi-site video link. Ma Xiaowei, director of National Health Commission, shared China’s anti-epidemic experience from eight aspects, saying that "China’s prevention and control strategies, methods, technologies, standards and cases have stood the actual test and are willing to share them with the international community to help maintain global health and safety". On the same day, in the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Academician Zhong Nanshan and the intensive care team of the hospital had a multi-party video connection with experts from Harvard Medical School and intensive care in the United States to discuss cooperation on clinical research in COVID-19.
Eighty-five years ago, Hans Zinser, an American epidemiologist, warned in his classic book Mice, Lices and History: A New History of Human Destiny that no matter how safe and orderly modern civilized life seems, bacteria, protozoa and viruses always lurk in the shadows. As long as people let their guard down, they will attack.
There are 800 million viruses in every square meter of space on the earth. Whether in the past, present or future, it is the common goal of all mankind to recognize and defeat viruses. At present, the "patient zero" in COVID-19 has not been found, and there are still many unknowns about the origin, spread and evolution of Covid-19, which need to be answered by researchers from all over the world.
"The virus has no borders, and the unity and cooperation shown by people, medical personnel and researchers in various countries in the face of the epidemic shows that the concept of a community of human destiny has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people." Pierre piccard, a professor at the University of Paris VIII, said.
Under the epidemic situation, all countries share the same fate, and only by watching and helping each other can we overcome the difficulties together. As the Supreme Leader General Secretary pointed out in his reply to Bill Gates: "I have always said that human beings are a community of destiny. Unity and cooperation are the most powerful weapons to overcome epidemics that affect the safety of people in all countries. "
