Revenue of $805.5M (+6.5% Y/Y) beats by $4.36M.
Shares -2.59%.
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3534890-perkinelmer-eps-beats-0_02-beats-on-revenue
Monday, January 27, 2020
Acceleron’s sotatercept successful in PAH study; shares up 55% after hours
Acceleron Pharma (NASDAQ:XLRN) announces positive results from a Phase 2 clinical trial, PULSAR, evaluating sotatercept in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).
The study met the primary endpoint of a
statistically significant reduction in pulmonary vascular resistance
(PVR) at week 24 versus placebo. Key secondary endpoints were also met.
Detailed data will be presented at a future medical conference.
Management will host a conference call today at 5:00 pm ET to discuss the results.
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3534880-accelerons-sotatercept-successful-in-pah-study-shares-up-55-after-hours
Seven Possible NY Coronavirus Cases Sent To CDC For Testing
Seven cases of the highly contagious coronavirus in New York has been
sent to the Centers for Disease Control and testing, the state Health
Department announced.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on Sunday, Jan. 26 that seven people have been identified for testing, with three coming up negative, and four still pending. There have been no confirmed cases in New York as of Monday, Jan. 27.
Health officials did not say where the New Yorkers being tested lived. The coronavirus has been linked to 56 deaths in China and has infected more than 2,700.
According to Cuomo, with travelers expected to begin returning to the
country this week from Lunar New Year celebrations in China, the New
York State Department of Health (DOH) has begun working with the Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey to post multilingual signage about
the virus at all four Port Authority international airports.
Last week the DOH issued guidance to healthcare providers, healthcare facilities, clinical laboratories and local health departments providing updated information about the outbreak, and ensuring protocols are in place if a patient is experiencing symptoms consistent with the novel coronavirus, had a travel history to Wuhan, China, where the novel coronavirus originated.
“While the experts still believe the risk of catching this novel coronavirus is currently low in New York, I want all New Yorkers to know we are prepared and continue to take all necessary steps to keep people informed and safe,” Cuomo said. “I have directed the Department of Health and other state agencies to continue working closely with the CDC, the World Health Organization, our local and federal government partners, and New York’s healthcare providers to ensure we stay ahead of this situation.”
There is currently no vaccine for the coronavirus, though health officials said that “everyday preventative actions can help stop the spread of the virus, including washing hands, avoiding contact with people who are sick and frequently cleaning or disinfecting objects and surfaces.
Health officials noted that “since this virus is very new, health authorities continue to carefully watch how this virus spreads. It is probably spread from animals to humans, and it also may be spread from person to person. It’s not clear yet how easily novel coronavirus spreads from person-to-person. It’s important to know this in order to better understand the risk associated with this virus.”
Symptoms of the novel coronavirus may include:
https://dailyvoice.com/new-york/southorange/news/seven-possible-ny-coronavirus-cases-sent-to-cdc-for-testing/782444/
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on Sunday, Jan. 26 that seven people have been identified for testing, with three coming up negative, and four still pending. There have been no confirmed cases in New York as of Monday, Jan. 27.
Health officials did not say where the New Yorkers being tested lived. The coronavirus has been linked to 56 deaths in China and has infected more than 2,700.
Last week the DOH issued guidance to healthcare providers, healthcare facilities, clinical laboratories and local health departments providing updated information about the outbreak, and ensuring protocols are in place if a patient is experiencing symptoms consistent with the novel coronavirus, had a travel history to Wuhan, China, where the novel coronavirus originated.
“While the experts still believe the risk of catching this novel coronavirus is currently low in New York, I want all New Yorkers to know we are prepared and continue to take all necessary steps to keep people informed and safe,” Cuomo said. “I have directed the Department of Health and other state agencies to continue working closely with the CDC, the World Health Organization, our local and federal government partners, and New York’s healthcare providers to ensure we stay ahead of this situation.”
There is currently no vaccine for the coronavirus, though health officials said that “everyday preventative actions can help stop the spread of the virus, including washing hands, avoiding contact with people who are sick and frequently cleaning or disinfecting objects and surfaces.
Health officials noted that “since this virus is very new, health authorities continue to carefully watch how this virus spreads. It is probably spread from animals to humans, and it also may be spread from person to person. It’s not clear yet how easily novel coronavirus spreads from person-to-person. It’s important to know this in order to better understand the risk associated with this virus.”
Symptoms of the novel coronavirus may include:
- Runny nose;
- Headache;
- Cough;
- Sore throat;
- Fever.
https://dailyvoice.com/new-york/southorange/news/seven-possible-ny-coronavirus-cases-sent-to-cdc-for-testing/782444/
US scrambles to evacuate some Americans from Wuhan
Hundreds of Americans will be be removed Tuesday from the epicenter of the deadly coronavirus in Wuhan, China, on a charter flight to California, according to a report.
The operation will fly out only some of the estimated 1,000 US citizens trapped in the city, which has been on lockdown after the virus broke out there last month, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Officials secured the charter plane, which seats around 230 people, to transport US diplomats and their families, as well as an “extremely limited” number of private citizens from the city’s closed airport, the outlet reported.
It’s unclear where exactly the flight will land, but some who have snagged seats were told it was headed to Ontario, Calif., which is east of Los Angeles, according to the report.
But the flight leaves behind hundreds of US citizens stuck in Wuhan, where reinforcements for medical personnel were dispatched Monday to help deal with the health crisis.
The death toll reached 81 on Monday as the number of cases surpasses 2,800 in China, the Guardian reported.
https://nypost.com/2020/01/27/us-scrambles-to-evacuate-americans-from-wuhan-on-chartered-flight/
The operation will fly out only some of the estimated 1,000 US citizens trapped in the city, which has been on lockdown after the virus broke out there last month, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Officials secured the charter plane, which seats around 230 people, to transport US diplomats and their families, as well as an “extremely limited” number of private citizens from the city’s closed airport, the outlet reported.
It’s unclear where exactly the flight will land, but some who have snagged seats were told it was headed to Ontario, Calif., which is east of Los Angeles, according to the report.
But the flight leaves behind hundreds of US citizens stuck in Wuhan, where reinforcements for medical personnel were dispatched Monday to help deal with the health crisis.
The death toll reached 81 on Monday as the number of cases surpasses 2,800 in China, the Guardian reported.
https://nypost.com/2020/01/27/us-scrambles-to-evacuate-americans-from-wuhan-on-chartered-flight/
Economic hit from coronavirus likely to be short lived, but still scary
The threat of China’s coronavirus triggering a global contagion has put a scare into Wall Street, but pandemics and other disasters have rarely had a lasting effect on the U.S. or global economies.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -1.35% sank more than 1% in Monday trades on fresh angst about the deadly coronavirus in China, home of the world’s second largest economy. Investors worry the disease could spread, dent the Chinese economy and radiate out to the rest of the world.
Read: How the stock market has performed during past viral outbreaks
China’s economy will undoubtedly be affected. The country has quarantined millions of people, restricted travel and extended the long Lunar New Year holiday to try to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
“It’s a little scary, frankly, not knowing the extent that this virus has spread.”A similar outbreak in China in 2003 involving SARS might be a template for how the coronavirus scare plays out. Back then, China’s economic growth briefly came to a halt as the country sought to corral a virus that killed almost 800 people. SARS soon petered out and China’s economy snapped back.
The U.S. and broader global economy, for their part, suffered barely any ill effects in 2003.
Analysts suspect a similar outcome this time around, but they are taking a wait-and-see approach for now.
“It is too early to assess the potential impact of the Chinese outbreak of coronavirus on the global economy,” said Agathe Demarais, global forecasting director at the Economist Intelligence Unit. “If the epidemic spreads globally, or if the number of deaths rises sharply, the knock-on impact on the global economy could be high, especially if international air travel is severely disrupted as a result of the epidemic.”
One big difference between SARS and the coronavirus is the mortality rate. The coronavirus has killed an estimated 3% to 4% of the people afflicted — most of them 50 or older — compared to nearly 10% of SARS victims, according to the World Health Organization. The WHO on Monday raised its risk level to “high” from “moderate.”
The coronavirus appears to spread more rapidly, however, and it’s still unclear just how many people have been infected.
“It’s a little scary, frankly, not knowing the extent that this virus has spread,” said senior economist Jennifer Lee of BMO Capital Markets. The uncertainty has contributed to the Wall Street malaise and interrupted a string of record highs in U.S. stocks markets.
Still, economists and market strategists are quick to point out that stocks typically recover quickly from health scares or other natural disasters that have proven more deadly.
“We have plenty of historical evidence of the impact of events like plagues, floods, hurricanes and storms,” said Carl Weinberg of High Frequency Economics. “They disrupt activity for a short period and often substantially reduce current-period output. However, output is made up rather quickly in the subsequent periods.”
Researchers at other Wall Street firms such as Renaissance Macro Research, Oxford Economics and Glenmede Trust Co. have all found same pattern.
“Markets have largely shrugged off epidemic scares in the past,” according to Glenmede Trust Company’s Investment Strategy Team. “History shows epidemics tend to have temporary impacts on markets,” Renaissance Macro said.
In the U.S., for example, the stock market fell as much as 15% during the SARS scare, but equities returned to their previous peak within several months. The broader U.S. economy, what’s more, grew a heady 3.5% in the spring of 2003 and 7% in the summer.
Yet as the trade war with China shows, the U.S. can also get hurt when Chinese growth is stunted, especially since its economy is so much bigger now than it was in 2003. Many countries are dependent on trade with China, giving it a huge influence on the global economy.
The trade fight caused China’s growth to slow to a 30-year low in 2019, undermining the broader global economy and causing U.S. exports to decline. The damage was enough to pressure President Trump to strike a temporary trade truce of sorts with China as he seeks to win a second term in 2020.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/economic-hit-from-coronavirus-likely-to-be-short-lived-but-its-still-a-little-scary-frankly-2020-01-27?siteid=rss&rss=1
Confusion and lost time: how testing woes slowed China’s coronavirus response
Yang Zhongyi was still waiting on Monday for a coronavirus test in
the Chinese city of Wuhan two weeks after she started to show signs of a
fever, even though doctors privately told her family that she almost
certainly has been infected, her son Zhang Changchun told Reuters.
Yang, 53, is just one of many Wuhan inhabitants finding it difficult
to get tested or receive treatment for the new form of coronavirus,
which authorities say has infected 2,800 people and killed at least 80
in China, a situation that may be contributing to the spread of the
disease.
Yang has been unable to gain full-time admission to a hospital, her son said. She has been put on drips in unquarantined areas at four separate hospitals in the city to treat her deteriorating lungs, he said, while he is doing what he can to get her tested or admitted full-time.
“My brother and I have been queuing at the hospital every day. We go at 6 and 7 in the morning, and queue for the whole day, but we don’t get any new answers,” Zhang told Reuters. “Every time the responses are the same: ‘There’s no bed, wait for the government to give a notice, and follow the news to see what’s going on.’ The doctors are all very frustrated too.”
Officially known as 2019-nCoV, the new form of coronavirus was first identified as the cause of death of a 61-year-old man in Wuhan on Jan. 10, when China shared gene information on the virus with other countries. Some, such as Japan and Thailand, started testing travelers from China for the virus within three days.
However, testing kits for the disease were not distributed to some of Wuhan’s hospitals until about Jan. 20, an official at the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Hubei CDC) told Reuters. Before then, samples had to be sent to a laboratory in Beijing for testing, a process that took three to five days to get results, according to Wuhan health authorities.
During that gap, hospitals in the city reduced the number of people under medical observation from 739 to just 82, according to data compiled by Reuters from Wuhan health authorities, and no new cases were reported inside China.
Despite the lack of reliable data and testing capacity in Wuhan, Chinese authorities assured citizens in the days after the virus had been identified that it was not widely transmissible. In previous weeks, it had censored negative online commentary about the situation, and arrested eight people it accused of being “rumor spreaders.”
“The doctor didn’t wear a mask, we didn’t know how to protect ourselves… no one told us anything,” a 45-year-old woman surnamed Chen told Reuters. Her aunt was confirmed to have the virus on Jan. 20, five days after she was hospitalized. “I posted my aunt’s photos on (Chinese social media site) Weibo and the police called the hospital authorities. They told me to take it down.”
National, regional and city health officials did not respond to requests for comment from Reuters on how the virus outbreak has been handled. National officials did say at a media briefing last week that there were some “loopholes” in initial treatment methods.
Wuhan’s mayor, Zhou Xianwang, told Chinese state television on Monday he recognized that “all parties were not satisfied with the disclosure of our information.” But he pointed to strictures placed upon him by provincial and national leaders.
“In local governance, after I receive information, I can only release it when I’m authorized,” he said. Zhou told a media briefing on Sunday that a further 1,000 people could be diagnosed with the virus in Wuhan, based on the number of patients yet to be tested.
The country has been praised internationally for quickly sequencing the virus gene. However, its slow scale-up of testing has been questioned.
Once a virus has been identified, “You need to make sure you have all the reagent (a substance used in chemical analysis) samples and you’ve got it all pushed out to where you want to do testing,” said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, who focuses on emerging infectious disease and pandemic preparedness.
Although information from the region is scarce, Adalja suggested China has had problems with this stage of tackling the outbreak. “We’re already hearing that there are shortages of medical professionals there, that there are shortages of test kits and medicines,” he said.
John Edmunds, a professor at the center for mathematical modeling of infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said China has not communicated enough detailed data after the initial outbreak.
“We have a very incomplete picture of what’s going on,” he told Reuters. “Whether it’s incompetence, secrecy, or deliberate, I don’t know, but it would be very useful if we could have some basic epidemiological data.”
The shortage of testing supplies and China’s initial reticence have drawn criticism that the country is still learning lessons from the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2002 that killed almost 800 people.
“The improvements have been on the hard science side – figuring out the virus’s genome, building new hospitals at a moment’s notice – more than on the soft science side of managing information and dealing with people,” said Mary Gallagher, a political science professor who leads the University of Michigan’s Center for Chinese Studies.
City managers had little incentive to escalate problems to political superiors. The week in which no new virus cases were reported in Hubei coincided with preparations for the Lunar New Year and sessions of the province’s National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
But four people told Reuters they were refused tests because the process involved a complex reporting system including hospital, district and city health authorities and disease control officials.
To qualify for the test, patients need to meet certain criteria, such
as having symptoms of fever and pneumonia, and a surge in patients
means it is “impossible to conduct the test right away,” an official at
the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention told Reuters.
Three hospital and local government workers, who have been briefed on how doctors are handling tests and confirming cases, told Reuters that official numbers of infections and deaths do not reflect the actual toll.
Wuhan health authorities have a limit on tests, chiefly because of the shortage of testing kits, and are screening lists of patients before deciding who gets a test, which takes several hours, one hospital worker told Reuters.
“Some severely ill patients were left out from the final list for testing because they know they wouldn’t be able to be treated,” the worker told Reuters. “The actual deaths were higher.”
Reuters could not independently confirm the hospital worker’s account. Hubei and Wuhan health authorities did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Zhang, whose mother is still waiting for a test, said doctors at three Wuhan hospitals told her family privately that they are almost certain she has contracted the coronavirus.
However, he said two of those hospitals told him they are not equipped with testing kits, and the other told him it has no available bed to accommodate his mother for the test.
None of those hospitals replied to Reuters requests for comment.
Sixty-nine year-old Xu Enen, who has had fever and a lung infection since Jan. 8, was rejected by six hospitals in Wuhan for testing as they said they had ran out of beds, his daughter told Reuters. Xu’s symptoms have worsened lately, and he is starting to have breathing difficulties.
He was finally admitted on Jan. 22 to queue for the test at Hankou hospital in Wuhan after his daughter publicized his case on Weibo.
Researchers at Lancaster University estimate that only 5.1% of infections in Wuhan have been identified. By Jan. 21, they estimated a total of 11,341 people had been infected in Wuhan since the start of the year. More than 30,000 people in Wuhan are under observation, according to the city’s health authorities.
“All we want is to confirm the case is the virus or not,” said a 33-year-old Wuhan woman surnamed Liu, whose father has been on a respirator in hospital since Jan. 14 and was still untested on Monday. “At least if it’s confirmed we have a direction. If there’s no direction, there’s no hope.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-testing-insight/confusion-and-lost-time-how-testing-woes-slowed-chinas-coronavirus-response-idUSKBN1ZQ21K
Yang has been unable to gain full-time admission to a hospital, her son said. She has been put on drips in unquarantined areas at four separate hospitals in the city to treat her deteriorating lungs, he said, while he is doing what he can to get her tested or admitted full-time.
“My brother and I have been queuing at the hospital every day. We go at 6 and 7 in the morning, and queue for the whole day, but we don’t get any new answers,” Zhang told Reuters. “Every time the responses are the same: ‘There’s no bed, wait for the government to give a notice, and follow the news to see what’s going on.’ The doctors are all very frustrated too.”
Officially known as 2019-nCoV, the new form of coronavirus was first identified as the cause of death of a 61-year-old man in Wuhan on Jan. 10, when China shared gene information on the virus with other countries. Some, such as Japan and Thailand, started testing travelers from China for the virus within three days.
However, testing kits for the disease were not distributed to some of Wuhan’s hospitals until about Jan. 20, an official at the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Hubei CDC) told Reuters. Before then, samples had to be sent to a laboratory in Beijing for testing, a process that took three to five days to get results, according to Wuhan health authorities.
During that gap, hospitals in the city reduced the number of people under medical observation from 739 to just 82, according to data compiled by Reuters from Wuhan health authorities, and no new cases were reported inside China.
Despite the lack of reliable data and testing capacity in Wuhan, Chinese authorities assured citizens in the days after the virus had been identified that it was not widely transmissible. In previous weeks, it had censored negative online commentary about the situation, and arrested eight people it accused of being “rumor spreaders.”
“The doctor didn’t wear a mask, we didn’t know how to protect ourselves… no one told us anything,” a 45-year-old woman surnamed Chen told Reuters. Her aunt was confirmed to have the virus on Jan. 20, five days after she was hospitalized. “I posted my aunt’s photos on (Chinese social media site) Weibo and the police called the hospital authorities. They told me to take it down.”
National, regional and city health officials did not respond to requests for comment from Reuters on how the virus outbreak has been handled. National officials did say at a media briefing last week that there were some “loopholes” in initial treatment methods.
Wuhan’s mayor, Zhou Xianwang, told Chinese state television on Monday he recognized that “all parties were not satisfied with the disclosure of our information.” But he pointed to strictures placed upon him by provincial and national leaders.
“In local governance, after I receive information, I can only release it when I’m authorized,” he said. Zhou told a media briefing on Sunday that a further 1,000 people could be diagnosed with the virus in Wuhan, based on the number of patients yet to be tested.
DELAYED RESPONSE
China last week locked down the affected region in Hubei province in the biggest quarantine operation on record and is building two new hospitals to treat virus patients. President Xi Jinping has created a special committee to tackle the outbreak.The country has been praised internationally for quickly sequencing the virus gene. However, its slow scale-up of testing has been questioned.
Once a virus has been identified, “You need to make sure you have all the reagent (a substance used in chemical analysis) samples and you’ve got it all pushed out to where you want to do testing,” said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, who focuses on emerging infectious disease and pandemic preparedness.
Although information from the region is scarce, Adalja suggested China has had problems with this stage of tackling the outbreak. “We’re already hearing that there are shortages of medical professionals there, that there are shortages of test kits and medicines,” he said.
John Edmunds, a professor at the center for mathematical modeling of infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said China has not communicated enough detailed data after the initial outbreak.
“We have a very incomplete picture of what’s going on,” he told Reuters. “Whether it’s incompetence, secrecy, or deliberate, I don’t know, but it would be very useful if we could have some basic epidemiological data.”
The shortage of testing supplies and China’s initial reticence have drawn criticism that the country is still learning lessons from the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2002 that killed almost 800 people.
“The improvements have been on the hard science side – figuring out the virus’s genome, building new hospitals at a moment’s notice – more than on the soft science side of managing information and dealing with people,” said Mary Gallagher, a political science professor who leads the University of Michigan’s Center for Chinese Studies.
City managers had little incentive to escalate problems to political superiors. The week in which no new virus cases were reported in Hubei coincided with preparations for the Lunar New Year and sessions of the province’s National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
STILL WAITING
Seven of the largest hospitals in Wuhan are now equipped with testing kits for the virus, which in theory deliver results within a day, the Hubei CDC official said.But four people told Reuters they were refused tests because the process involved a complex reporting system including hospital, district and city health authorities and disease control officials.
Three hospital and local government workers, who have been briefed on how doctors are handling tests and confirming cases, told Reuters that official numbers of infections and deaths do not reflect the actual toll.
Wuhan health authorities have a limit on tests, chiefly because of the shortage of testing kits, and are screening lists of patients before deciding who gets a test, which takes several hours, one hospital worker told Reuters.
“Some severely ill patients were left out from the final list for testing because they know they wouldn’t be able to be treated,” the worker told Reuters. “The actual deaths were higher.”
Reuters could not independently confirm the hospital worker’s account. Hubei and Wuhan health authorities did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Zhang, whose mother is still waiting for a test, said doctors at three Wuhan hospitals told her family privately that they are almost certain she has contracted the coronavirus.
However, he said two of those hospitals told him they are not equipped with testing kits, and the other told him it has no available bed to accommodate his mother for the test.
None of those hospitals replied to Reuters requests for comment.
Sixty-nine year-old Xu Enen, who has had fever and a lung infection since Jan. 8, was rejected by six hospitals in Wuhan for testing as they said they had ran out of beds, his daughter told Reuters. Xu’s symptoms have worsened lately, and he is starting to have breathing difficulties.
He was finally admitted on Jan. 22 to queue for the test at Hankou hospital in Wuhan after his daughter publicized his case on Weibo.
Researchers at Lancaster University estimate that only 5.1% of infections in Wuhan have been identified. By Jan. 21, they estimated a total of 11,341 people had been infected in Wuhan since the start of the year. More than 30,000 people in Wuhan are under observation, according to the city’s health authorities.
“All we want is to confirm the case is the virus or not,” said a 33-year-old Wuhan woman surnamed Liu, whose father has been on a respirator in hospital since Jan. 14 and was still untested on Monday. “At least if it’s confirmed we have a direction. If there’s no direction, there’s no hope.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-testing-insight/confusion-and-lost-time-how-testing-woes-slowed-chinas-coronavirus-response-idUSKBN1ZQ21K
WHO corrects China virus global risk level to ‘high’
The World Health Organization on Monday admitted an error in its
assessment of the global risk of a deadly virus in China, saying it was
“high” and not “moderate”.
The Geneva-based UN health agency said in a situation report published late Sunday that the risk was “very high in China, high at the regional level and high at the global level.”
In a footnote, the WHO explained that it had stated “incorrectly” in its previous reports on Thursday, Friday and Saturday that the global risk was “moderate”.
The correction of the global risk assessment does not mean that an international health emergency has been declared.
WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said only that there had been “an error in the wording”.
Asked what the risk categorisation meant, the WHO said it was “a global evaluation of risk, covering severity, spread and capacity to cope”.
The WHO on Thursday had stopped short of declaring the novel coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern—a rare designation used only for the most severe outbreaks that could trigger more concerted global action.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is visiting China this week to discuss how to contain the outbreak, on Thursday said: “This is an emergency in China, but it has not yet become a global health emergency”.
WHO’s cautious approach can be seen in the context of past criticism over its slow or too hasty use of the term, first used for the deadly 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic.
During that outbreak, the UN health agency was criticised for sparking panic-buying of vaccines with its announcement that year that the outbreak had reached pandemic proportions, and then anger when it turned out the virus was not nearly as dangerous as first thought.
But in 2014, the WHO met harsh criticism for dragging its feet and downplaying the severity of the Ebola epidemic that ravaged three West Africa countries, claiming more than 11,300 lives by the time it ended in 2016.
WHO chief heads to China for virus talks
The Geneva-based UN health agency said in a situation report published late Sunday that the risk was “very high in China, high at the regional level and high at the global level.”
In a footnote, the WHO explained that it had stated “incorrectly” in its previous reports on Thursday, Friday and Saturday that the global risk was “moderate”.
The correction of the global risk assessment does not mean that an international health emergency has been declared.
WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said only that there had been “an error in the wording”.
Asked what the risk categorisation meant, the WHO said it was “a global evaluation of risk, covering severity, spread and capacity to cope”.
The WHO on Thursday had stopped short of declaring the novel coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern—a rare designation used only for the most severe outbreaks that could trigger more concerted global action.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is visiting China this week to discuss how to contain the outbreak, on Thursday said: “This is an emergency in China, but it has not yet become a global health emergency”.
WHO’s cautious approach can be seen in the context of past criticism over its slow or too hasty use of the term, first used for the deadly 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic.
During that outbreak, the UN health agency was criticised for sparking panic-buying of vaccines with its announcement that year that the outbreak had reached pandemic proportions, and then anger when it turned out the virus was not nearly as dangerous as first thought.
But in 2014, the WHO met harsh criticism for dragging its feet and downplaying the severity of the Ebola epidemic that ravaged three West Africa countries, claiming more than 11,300 lives by the time it ended in 2016.
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