Good morning, good afternoon and good evening.As of tomorrow, it will be three months since I declared a public health emergency of international concern over the outbreak of novel coronavirus.
Today I’d like to take a few moments to look back at the period preceding that announcement, to be clear about what WHO knew, and what we did.
On the 31st of December, WHO’s Epidemic Intelligence System picked up a report about a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan, China.
The following day, New Year’s Day, WHO asked China for more information under the International Health Regulations, and activated our Incident Management Support Team, to coordinate the response across headquarters, and our regional and country offices.