UN Chief Says Declaration of Coronavirus Pandemic Is Call to Action

United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on governments to immediately “scale up” their efforts to confront the new coronavirus in an attempt to stop the now-global pandemic.

“Today’s declaration of a pandemic is a call to action — for everyone, everywhere,” Guterres said in a statement released on Wednesday, referring to the announcement earlier in the day by the World Health Organization (WHO) that the coronavirus outbreak is now a global pandemic.

“As we fight the virus, we cannot let fear go viral,” Guterres added. “Together, we can still change the course of this pandemic — but that means addressing inaction. I call on every government to step up and scale up their efforts now.”

He said the transmission of the virus could be much curtailed if countries tracked and isolated confirmed and suspected cases.

The WHO earlier on Wednesday described the deadly virus outbreak as a pandemic and blamed its spread on “alarming levels of inaction.”

The coronavirus, which emerged in China in December last year, has spread around the world, halting industries, bringing travel to a standstill, closing schools, and forcing the cancellation of public events.

More than 126,000 people have been infected by the coronavirus across the world and 4,630 have died, the vast majority of them in China, according to a Reuters tally.