Author: LT

Not sure how I missed a news report about a company named Biogen, who has been identified as the source of a coronavirus cluster in the states. They held an event on Feb 26-27, which accounted for 77 of the 95 infected people in Massachusetts, and countless people outside of the state.

After reading a few stories about business people getting infected at conference, or recalling Rudy Gobert’s positive notice, it occurred to me that wealthy, upper middle class and middle-class people are likely the reason this disease is spreading around the global. I don’t know any poor people who are traveling around the global for business, vacation, cruises, to visit their timeshare, or their vacation homes. The data scientist in me would love to see the data from Homeland Security to map travelers arrival into the U.S. and the spread of infections in a time-lapsed model.

The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) announced Wednesday that the coronavirus strain known as COVID-19 is now officially classified as a pandemic. The director also noted that although this distinction “does not change WHO’s assessment of the threat posed by this virus,” it should also be recognized that “we have never before seen a pandemic that can be controlled.”

WHO has previously avoided using the term “pandemic” in conjunction with COVID-19 throughout the various stages of the outbreak. The Director made a similar statement to the press just two days ago and avoided the term, referring to COVID-19 exclusively as an epidemic and outbreak. They justified this policy under the rationale that the word pandemic itself “can cause unreasonable fear, or unjustified acceptance that the fight is over, leading to unnecessary suffering and death.” However, WHO has grown “concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction” and has decided to reverse this policy in the hopes that it will spark stronger action in the international community.