Switzerland, March 12, 2020/ Big PRwire/ — The World Health Organization (WHO) is deeply concerned on the status of the novel Coronavirus outbreak that it now sees COVID-19 disease as a global pandemic.

“We are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction,” Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva on Wednesday.

“We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic.”

A pandemic is a disease epidemic that has spread across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or worldwide.