x
Breaking News
More () »

Is coronavirus a world public health emergency?

As concerns over the coronavirus continue to spread, many are wondering why the world health organization has not declared a public health emergency. So what go...

As concerns over the coronavirus continue to spread, many are wondering why the world health organization has not declared a public health emergency. So what goes into that decision?

SARS OUTBREAK: LESSONS LEARNED
To understand how this works, you can look at the epidemic that inspired the world health organization to come up with the idea of a global public health emergency…SARS.

That happened in 2003 and there are a lot of similarities with today’s outbreak. SARS began in China. In fact SARS is a type of coronavirus and the 2003 cases were also traced back to a live animal market in China. But back then China was accused of trying to cover up what was happening, and months later by the time the world found out what was going on, SARS was a pandemic and authorities were scrambling to contain it.

CHINA CORONAVIRUS: RESPONSE TRANSPARENT
This time around China has been fairly transparent and is working aggressively to limit the spread of the coronavirus. Also the global spread has been limited. That could change and the World Health Organization could still be declared a global emergency.

VERIFY: Fact-checking viral coronavirus videos and claims

Latest headlines:

Before You Leave, Check This Out