My point is, in case that isn't clear: the people on the front lines of this outbreak are telling a different story than the one that you seem to favor and that up to some point (right up until it became untenable) was still held by the Chinese authorities. So I'm a little skeptical about numbers and stories coming in from Chinese official channels taking them as a baseline with the mental note that things might be much worse.

The data points that we have from outside of China: Iran, the cruise ships, South Korea and several other regions where the virus has established a relatively strong foothold should give anybody pause at this point, any comparisons with the flu are pointless and noise.

Whether or not we are calling a pandemic is semantics, in all but name it is here today.

The doctor was the tip of the iceberg, he is no longer. But there are other people in charge of the messaging for other countries and it seems as though the dreaded pandemic word is now also used by the CDC and similar organizations, internally and with qualifiers ('preparing for a pandemic') it is more a matter of time when they will feel comfortable in using it publicly.