Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,First of all, I would like to say good morning. As you know, yesterday I said that that the global COVID-19 outbreak can now be described as a pandemic.
This is not a decision we took lightly. We have made this assessment for two main reasons: first, because of the speed and scale of transmission.
Almost 125,000 cases have now been reported to WHO, from 118 countries and territories. In the past two weeks, the number of cases reported outside China has increased almost 13-fold, and the number of affected countries has almost tripled.
The second reason is that despite our frequent warnings, we are deeply concerned that some countries are not approaching this threat with the level of political