Nine times more cases of Covid-19 now outside China: WHO

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press briefing at the agency’s headquarters in Geneva that new cases in China are falling, with just 206 new cases of the coronavirus, Covid-19, reported on Sunday, the lowest number of new cases in that country since January 22, while the number of cases are multiplying in other countries.
The total number of cases outside China is now 8,739 across 61 countries, including 127 deaths, Tedros said. About 81 per cent of cases outside China are in four countries, he added.
“The epidemics in the Republic of Korea, Italy, Iran and Japan are our greatest concern,” Tedros said, adding that world health officials reached Iran on Monday to deliver supplies and support. “This is a unique virus, with unique features. This virus is not influenza. We are in uncharted territory,” he said.
Of the other 57 affected countries, 38 have reported 10 cases or fewer, Tedros said. Nineteen countries have reported only one case, and some countries have contained the virus and haven’t reported in the last two weeks, he said.
Tedros said health officials would not hesitate to declare the outbreak a pandemic if there was evidence to suggest that. 
On Friday, at a press briefing, he said that most cases of Covid-19 can still be traced to known contacts or clusters of cases and there isn’t any “evidence as yet that the virus is spreading freely in communities".