WHO Declines to Declare Spread of Coronavirus a Pandemic

People wear face masks as they leave an office building in the Central Business District in Beijing as the country is hit by an outbreak of the novel coronavirus, China on Feb. 24, 2020. Thomas Peter/Reuters

The spread of the new coronavirus hasn’t met the level of a pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday even as the number of cases and deaths continued rising sharply in Iran, South Korea, and Italy.

The “sudden increase” in cases in those three countries are “deeply concerning,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva, but said that experts at the agency have decided against describing the situation as a “pandemic.”