On March 11, 2020 the director of the World Health Organization (WHO) made it official – he announced that COVID-19 is a global pandemic. On this day the world completely changed. Millions and millions of people would become infected, so many people were maimed and killed, hundreds of millions of people became unemployed, and the world watched tens of trillions of dollars in economic activity evaporate:
There are now more than 118,000 cases in 114 countries, and 4,291 people have lost their lives. Thousands more are fighting for their lives in hospitals. In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of cases, the number of deaths, and the number of affected countries climb even higher. WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and we are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction. We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic.