, Columnist
Why the WHO Won’t Call the Coronavirus a Pandemic
The question of whether to call Covid-19 a pandemic goes to the heart of the World Health Organization’s internal conflicts.
He wants to control the narrative, not just the virus.
Photographer: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images
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The World Health Organization still isn’t ready to call the coronavirus a pandemic. This says more about the WHO than it does about Covid-19.
“That word is scary, and it's used in movies, [but] that word is not a proxy for a deadly apocalyptic virus,” Jennifer Nuzzo from Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security said in a recent briefing. On the basic WHO definition — the worldwide spread of a new disease — Nuzzo and many others think Covid-19 fits the bill. So why not say so?