On March 9, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) said in Geneva that the current spread of new crown pneumonia in more than 100 countries and regions worldwide, with more than 100,000 cases, and new crown pneumonia has become a global The threat of an epidemic has become very real.

Earlier, Tedros said at a media briefing on March 2 that if the evidence is conclusive, WHO will not hesitate to declare new crown pneumonia as a global pandemic.

Right now, the epidemic of new crown pneumonia is clearly sweeping the globe. Previously, the World Health Organization had been insisting on using the term epidemic.

Despite the suppression of the new crown pneumonia epidemic in China, there have been multiple cluster infections in South Korea, Japan, Italy, Iran and other countries, and the number of confirmed cases has increased rapidly. Among them, the cases associated with Iran and Italy have been exported to many countries. On the evening of the same day, it was announced that on the 10th, Italy would impose a ban on city closures nationwide.

What is a global pandemic?

According to the World Health Organization's definition, a global pandemic is a "new disease that is spread widely from person to person worldwide."

Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University in the United States, said that under normal circumstances, when an epidemic becomes quite common in a particular country or region, it will become an epidemic; When it was widely spread in many parts of the world and on many continents, it became a global pandemic.

In addition, the global pandemic also has an infection path that can continue to spread-although the number of infections in China has been curbed, cluster infections have occurred in other countries and are increasingly proven to have no clear link to China.

The World Health Organization last announced the global pandemic (Pandemic) during the 2009 outbreak of H1N1 influenza A.

What does "global pandemic" mean

The evolution of new crown pneumonia into a "global pandemic" means not only an increase in the severity of the epidemic, but also an increase in the difficulty of fighting the epidemic.

"The approach to dealing with this pathogen may also change," said Jennifer Nuzo, a senior researcher at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health and Safety. "If the case is ubiquitous, authorities may stop preventing it from entering another country and focus instead on treatment. The disease itself slows down the spread of pathogens and protects vulnerable groups."

While New Zealand Coronary Pneumonia has become a global pandemic, the World Health Organization has not yet issued official prevention and control guidance documents. However, previously, due to the lessons learned and summary of the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, WHO issued the "Pandemic Influenza Risk Management" in 2017.

According to the guideline, at any point in time of a global pandemic, one or more member states may be responding to a national epidemic, while other member states may not be affected in the coming months.

Therefore, each Member State is encouraged to establish its own risk assessment to determine when, scale, focus, intensity and urgency of action at the national and local levels, taking into account the results of the global risk assessment.

"National action should be separated from the global phase, and global risk assessments are not representative of individual member states."

Considering the differences between new coronaviruses and influenza viruses, this guide may not necessarily be accurate. But the concept is consistent: when responding to the "global epidemic", not only do countries need to carry out prevention and control work according to local conditions, but also the sincere cooperation between countries.

What is the impact on the global economy?

When New Coronary Pneumonia became a global pandemic, the extent of the blow to the global economy was also a major issue of concern to the world.

Reference is also defined as a global pandemic H1N1 influenza. According to the Bank of Mexico report, it caused a reduction of about 5.3% in the GDP of Mexico in the first place and economic losses of tens of billions of dollars.

Recall that SARS has also spread to the world. According to the statistics of the Brookings Institution, a US think tank, SARS caused about 40 billion US dollars to the global economy that year.

In contrast, the new crown virus is more cunning-more contagious than SARS, and has a higher lethality than influenza, which makes the epidemic more widespread worldwide.

The severity of the new crown epidemic, coupled with changes in the global economic landscape, has made this "global pandemic" even more menacing.

Moody Chief Economist Mark Zandi previously said that if new coronary pneumonia develops into a global pandemic, it could cause the United States and the global economy to fall into recession in the first half of 2020.

On February 22, the President of the International Monetary Fund, Georgiyeva, said during the G20 fiscal meeting that assuming that the Chinese economy can return to normal levels in the second quarter, global economic growth this year will be lower than expected in January. 0.1 percentage point to 3.2%.

With the escalation of the new crown pneumonia epidemic worldwide, the International Monetary Fund may re-evaluate the global economic growth rate.

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Special Report: Fighting The New Coronavirus