Coronavirus pandemic is 10 times more deadly than swine flu: WHO
GENEVA: The novel coronavirus is 10 times more deadly than swine flu, also called H1N1, which caused a global pandemic in 2009, the World Health Organization said Monday, calling for control measures to be lifted "slowly".
"We know that COVID-19 spreads fast, and we know that it is deadly, 10 times more deadly than the 2009 flu pandemic," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual briefing from Geneva.
Earlier, WHO chief had also said that the fatality rate of COVID-19 is estimated to be 10 times higher than influenza.
"This pandemic is much more than a health crisis. It requires a whole-of-government and whole-of-society response," the WHO chief said on Thursday in a mission briefing in Geneva.
He added that the world is yet to see the devastation it could wreak in poorer and more vulnerable countries. Without help and action now, poor countries and vulnerable communities could suffer massive devastation.
"The window for containing the virus at the sub-national and national level is closing in many countries. The infection numbers in Africa are relatively small now, but they are growing fast," he warned.
"As I said in the press conference yesterday, we must quarantine politicizing this virus at national and global levels. We have to work together, and we have no time to waste," he added.