Re:Covid-19 is now officially a pandemic, WHO says
by afthonos on Wednesday March 11, 2020 @03:10PM
(#22549283)
They were asked about this in their briefing a few days ago and made a multi-point response:
1) There are no objective criteria for calling something a pandemic.
2) They did not feel they knew enough about the propagation pattern to make the subjective call.
3) They were deeply worried that calling it a pandemic would switch government strategies from containment to mitigation, resulting in higher contagion and loss of life.
They especially emphasized the last point. The only question in my mind is whether (1) they decided containment was no longer viable or (2) they decided not calling it pandemic would be seen as unserious, even if containment could still potentially have benefits.
1) There are no objective criteria for calling something a pandemic.
2) They did not feel they knew enough about the propagation pattern to make the subjective call.
3) They were deeply worried that calling it a pandemic would switch government strategies from containment to mitigation, resulting in higher contagion and loss of life.
They especially emphasized the last point. The only question in my mind is whether (1) they decided containment was no longer viable or (2) they decided not calling it pandemic would be seen as unserious, even if containment could still potentially have benefits.
Source: https://youtu.be/OJQTM4QbTsg