THE World Health Organisation called the new coronavirus outbreak a pandemic yesterday, issuing a grim warning that the global spread and severity of the illness was due to “alarming levels of inaction”.

The call came as Europe faced a mounting number of cases –including a slew of new countries clocking first deaths – prompting governments to roll out increasingly tough measures to slow the rapid spread of the virus.

The number of cases across the globe has risen to more than 124,000 with 4,500 deaths, including a jump in fatalities particularly in Iran and Italy, according to an AFP tally.

The majority of cases have been in China where the outbreak first emerged in December, but as the number of new infections has steadied in the country, hot spots have emerged elsewhere – namely Italy, Iran and Spain. 

The head of the UN’s top health body for the first time characterised the outbreak as a pandemic, meaning it is spreading in several regions through local transmission.

“We have never before seen a pandemic sparked by a coronavirus,” director-general of WHO Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said yesterday, adding that the declaration would not change the organisation’s response to the outbreak.  

“We’re deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction.”

He did not single out any nations for not doing enough – or what further measures were needed. He instead called on “countries to take urgent and aggressive action”.

‘No clients’

Signs of a widening European crisis emerged yesterday, with Ireland, Albania, Belgium, Sweden and Bulgaria registering their first deaths, while Italy clocked more than 2,300 new cases in the last 24 hours and infections in Spain jumped by a quarter to more than 2,100. 

The surge brought Europe’s total number of cases to more than 22,000, with 930 deaths, and the US said it was considering issuing a ban on travellers from the continent.    

Millions of people in Italy are grappling with a nationwide clampdown that has emptied streets, shuttered shops and disrupted train and air travel.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said yesterday Italy would shut all stores except for pharmacies and food shops to curb the disease.

Factories and other big businesses can remain open as long as they adopt “appropriate security measures to prevent contagion”, Conte said

His government vowed to spend up to €25 billion (RM120 billion) to help contain fallout from the pandemic, including cash injections for hard-hit hotels and restaurants and allowing families to suspend some mortgage payments.

Even places with no significant outbreaks like Poland and Ukraine announced school closures and other restrictive measures. Austria said it would shut museums and halt train services to and from Italy.

In the Middle East, hard-hit Iran reported 63 new deaths, its highest single-day toll which brought total fatalities to 354. It has yet to impose quarantines but has closed schools, universities and hotels and called on people not to travel.

Tedros said the country, which has 9,000 cases, was “doing its best” to control the spread of the virus, but that it needed more supplies to cope. 

Elsewhere in the region, Kuwait said it was suspending all commercial flights in and out of the country, after it and other Gulf nations had already adopted travel restrictions. 

Sliver of hope

Offering a sliver of hope to the rest of the world, China again announced negligible new daily infections and only a relatively small number of deaths. 

Some businesses in China’s Hubei province – where the virus was first detected in December – were told they could restart work, reducing fears of a prolonged disruption of supply chains. 

But China remains the worst-affected country with more than 80,000 confirmed cases and more than 3,000 deaths.

Although Panama confirmed its first death on Tuesday, Latin America – along with Africa and Oceania – has so far reported only small numbers of cases.

And the United States saw its first signs of an emergency footing with the New York city government forming a containment zone around a suburb at the centre of an outbreak. 

Wall Street stocks suffered another brutal rout yesterday, pushing the Dow into a “bear market”, or 20% from its peak, after the latest series of event cancelations and company warnings rattled investors. – AFP, March 12, 2020.