As Corona Virus Infection-19 (Corona 19) swept around the world with terrible momentum, many experts have already diagnosed it as having entered the pandemic.

CNN in the United States also declared on the 9th (local time) that "the term pandemic will be used to express the current situation of corona 19".

But only the World Health Organization (WHO), which oversees global health policy, is hesitant to declare a pandemic.

On January 30, we declared an international public health emergency and raised the level of warning by raising the global risk to `` very high '' on the 28th of last month, but we are cautious in using the word toxic pandemic.

WHO has never made a clear statement about this.

But it can be inferred from comments from dozens of press briefings.

WHO does not yet have a pandemic standard or regulation for Corona19.

There is only a pandemic standard set in 2009 when the H1N1 epidemic occurred.

WHO defines the pandemic for H1N1 as "a worldwide spread of new diseases."

In this regard, spokesman Tarek Yasarevic said, "A new (pandemic) definition for influenza was created in 2009, but there is nothing defined for it." Many organizations are working together to ensure that

"The WHO no longer uses the pandemic system for influenza, which consisted of six stages," he added.

Second, it seems to be due to the burden of using the term pandemic.

Declaring a pandemic will typically cause countries to shift their policies from containment to mitigation.

Suppression means diagnosing and quarantining patients with suspected symptoms and tracking their contacts to prevent the spread of transmission.

However, once a virus spreads and determines that quarantine is impossible or impossible to achieve, it will switch to mitigation.

In this case, we will focus on reducing the possibility of spread by closing school or postponing or canceling large-scale events under the assumption that infection can occur anywhere, anytime.

Michael Ryan, head of the WHO Emergency Response Team, said in a recent press briefing that the proclamation of the pandemic could undermine countries' efforts to fight the virus.

"I would like to recommend that all member states should focus on deterrence, but at the same time prepare for mitigation. This is not a binary method of choosing between them," he said.

Another reason is that the WHO was criticized for being too hasty when it announced the pandemic of H1N1 in 2009.

Since the announcement of Pandemic at that time, the H1N1 crisis was not as serious as expected, and some criticized the WHO for overreacting in the direction of some pharmaceutical companies.

For this reason, there is a view that WHO has no choice but to hesitate to declare a fanatic for Corona19.

However, with more than 100 countries affected by Corona19 and more than 100,000 confirmed and deadly deaths each, WHO also admitted to becoming closer to Pandemic.

WHO Secretary-General Thewards Adhanom Gerberus warned in a press briefing that "the threat of the pandemic has become very real."

"It's going to be the first pandemic to be controlled for the first time in history," he said. "We're not caught up with this virus."

At the same time, they ordered more aggressive and aggressive responses from countries.

(Photo = provided by WHO