There's a "long, long way to go" before coronavirus isn't considered a pandemic, WHO says

Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization's Health Emergencies Programme, said the world needs to reach “a point of very significant control over the virus” to no longer consider coronavirus a pandemic. 

There's a long, long way to go before there's going to be any bells unrung in this response,” Ryan said on Wednesday during a briefing. 

Ryan said as countries try to find a path toward a new normal, “we're going to be on that pathway for a long, long time.”  He explained that the International Health Regulations only allows two choices: there is either a global public health emergency, or there is not. 

“We can obviously, as time goes on in our risk assessment, reduce the level of alert at national, regional and global levels, through our systematic risk assessment process,” Ryan said. “At the moment, we obviously consider the risks to still be high.”  

Ryan said as time goes on, WHO could consider moving the risk assessments for each country down, but “that is going to require us reaching a point of very significant control over the virus, very strong public health surveillance and stronger health systems in place to cope with any recurrent cases.”

“I think we're going to have to remain on alert, stay the course and ensure that we're ready to respond,” he said.

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