Delay. Thank you very much for watching us on many social media platforms. Offer the regular. Ress briefing on covid19 just to remind you that we will have an audio file from this press briefing immediately available with a couple of links to news that has been issued by different who offices as well as advisors for media briefings that will be held by our regional offices, so you will get that after the briefing. Thank you, and i would also like to apologize for the delay. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, whatever you want. The fourth month since the start of the covid19 pandemic, im deeply concerned about the rapid escalation and global spread of infection. Over the past five weeks, we have witnessed a near exponential growth in the number of new cases. ,eaching almost every country territory, and area. The number of deaths has more than doubled in the past week. In the next few days, we will reach one million confirmed deaths. D 50,000 numberslatively lower of confirmed cases have been imported from africa and from central and south america, we realize that covid19 could have serious social, economic, and political consequences for these regions. Ensureritical that we these countries are wellequipped to detect, test, isolate, and treat cases and identify contacts. Im encouraged to see that this is occurring in many countries, despite limited resources. Countries are asking people to stayathome and shutting down populated movements, which can help to limit transmission of the virus but can have unintended consequences for the poorest and most Vulnerable People. I have called on governments to put in place social welfare measures to ensure Vulnerable People have food and other Life Essentials during this crisis. In india, for example, Prime Minister modi has announced a 24 billion package including poorfers to 204 million women and free cooking gas for 80 million households for the next three months. Many developing countries will struggle to implement social welfare programs of this nature. For those countries, it really is essential to enable them to take care of their people and avoid economic collapse. , theis a call from the who world bank, and debt relief for developing countries. Three months ago, we knew almost nothing about this virus. Collectively, we have learned an enormous amount and every day, we learn more. The who is committed to serving all people everywhere with the best evidence to protect their health. Basedo develops guidance on the totality of evidence collected from around the world. Or who live in cramped conditions. Together with unicef and the International Federation of the red cross, we have published new guidance for improving access to handwashing. Thatuidance recommends countries set up handwashing stations at the entrance to public buildings, offices, bus stops, and train stations and many countries are doing it. We are also working hard with researchers all over the world to generate the evidence about which medicines are most effective for treating covid19. There has been an extraordinary response to our countries to join the solidarity trial, which is comparing drug and drug combinations. So far, 74 countries have either joined the trial or are in the process of joining. As of this morning, more than 200 patients have been randomly assigned to one of the three study arms. Each new patient who joins the closer to us one step knowing which drugs work. We are continuing to study the evidence about the use of masks. Whos priority is that Frontline Health workers are able to access essential personal protective equipment, including medical masks and respirators. That is why we are continuing to work with governments and manufacturers to step up the including masks. Aboutis an ongoing debate for the use ofs people who are sick and those caring for them. However, in this circumstance. Masks are only effective when combined with other protective. Easures the who continues to gather all the potentialence use of masks more broadly to control covid19 transmission at the community level. This is still a very new virus and we are learning all the time. , so doesndemic evolves the evidence and so does our advice, but what does not change is the who commitment to protecting the health of all people based on the best science without fear or favor. I think you. Thank you very much. We will now open the floor for questions. I will remind you that we will try to keep one question per person, so we try to get as many as possible. We will not be able to stay very long. Lets start first from italy. Can you hear us . Can we try one more time . Ok, we may try to come back to him. Go to brazilian media. Can you hear us . Can you hear me . Yes, go ahead. Thank you for taking my question. Bolsonaro president has refused [indiscernible] what is youro you, message to the brazilian people and the brazilian leadership . Thank you. I think the message to the who is giving to all countries is that we need a comprehensive strategy to respond to this disease. To any, in addition measures around lockdown, we need to put in place a comprehensive strategy based on surveillance, on Public Health intervention, testing, isolation, or in teen, and strengthening our Health Systems blow and absorb the the blows that many have had to bear over the past few weeks. It is very important that all countries take this seriously, get ready, prepare their Health System, strengthen Public Health, engage communities, educate communities, and in communities on board, and leave no one behind. This is advice we are giving to all countries, not just brazil. Thank you very much. Withll try one more time italy. He was on mute. Are you available now . Can you unmute yourself . Apparently, it is not working. We will move on. Stephanie from reuters. Can you hear me . Yes, can you hear me . Yes, please, go ahead. , china has now the number of asymptomatic cases. Not counting in their statistics that they are reporting as confirmed cases. I wonder if you could that into context. Today, they said there were about 130 asymptomatic cases, which they are excluding from their figures. Can you help us understand that . How does that tally . Are you getting an accurate reading of the situation . Marie oning to pass to this. Thank you. With regards to the reporting of the cases, our case definitions include laboratory firm cases regardless of develop symptoms because we know there are individuals who are followed up your Contact Tracing and they are identified very quickly every and some of those individuals who are identified have not developed symptoms, so it is important for us to capture those symptoms as art of case detection and surveillance every at surveillance. From data we have seen from china in particular, we know individuals who are listed as a symptomatic, about 75 of those go on to develop symptoms. When we look at our language and we look at what proportion of the reported cases are asymptomatic, it is important to classify those as no symptoms and positive and do not develop symptoms. Those individuals who are identified as asymptomatic at the time of reporting and go on to develop symptoms, 75 of those, are actually presymptomatic, they are in the presymptomatic phase. Then most of the people identified are symptomatic. We know that through transmission, the transmission of the virus is driven by people who are asymptomatic, but it is important for us to capture the full spectrum of illness, the full spectrum of detection. We include laboratory cases regardless of the development of dems. Thank you very much. We will go to michael. Contributor to cnn. Can you hear us . I can hear you, can you hear me . Go ahead. Thank you for taking my call. Now,ound three weeks from the holy month of ramadan will commence. Of course, hundreds of millions of faithful will be partaking in this. Breaking their fast, eating together, sharing their food. Large numbers gather. General, it isr very important to get unambiguous Health Messaging out earlier papers are to be changed in any way every at what would be to your message to religious leaders and governments in the region to prevent a further outbreak during this special time of the year . Yes, thank you so much. In this response, in the fight against this pandemic, the role of political leaders is central. The role of Business Leaders is iny important and central the role of religious leaders is very important. Business leaders, religious leaders, and community leaders. It is through those leaders that we can reach out to all communities to take part in the fight. This, with regard to ramadan, as you have been following, countries in the middle east have been doing everything they can to limit the spread of the virus. We will continue to engage them. Know we will have an amicable solution on this one. We are very close and closely working and our cooperation is very successful and we hope that we will continue in that spirit. By the way, not only something theyre doing for their own region, we are getting a lot of Financial Support from the middle east. I would like to use this , nottunity to thank them only for taking serious measures , but for their solidarity to support countries need support. In the recent pledge, as we remember, is from saudi arabia, which we saved a few days ago. We will keep in touch and we know they will continue to protect their own people, but at the same time, support countries and communities who need their support. Thank you very much. We go to guatemala now. Can you please ask your question . Thank you so much. How do you see the situation for covid19 in Central America and what are your recommendations for the government . I think there is the countries of Central America are at the beginning or the up cycle of the epidemic. Capacitiesifferent in different countries. Their migrants and others scattered throughout the region. Central america is dealing with each country has a different combination of economic challenge, social challenge, vulnerable populations, Public Health system, Health Care System, and how all this is put together. For eachortant country. Im glad to report that in most every country in central and south america now has a National Action plan being supported by the International Community. By humanitarian partners in the u. N. System. Some countries do need that external assistance. It is important that countries in Central America and the caribbean are coordinating to align their strategies and policies so we dont see massive differentials in action and pushing people from one side to the other. Sensitive to those who are most vulnerable. It is important that Central America scales up its Public Health response, scales up community engagement, health has soeparedness, and many times, this is the deadly virus. , bute will get through it we must build the architecture Public Health, the architecture of our Health System if we are going to get out of an interminable cycle of economically punishing lockdowns and shutdowns. We must get back to be able to control this virus, live with this virus, develop the vaccines we need to finally eradicate this virus, so as i said, the message to Central America is very similar to the rest of the world. If i could add, we have within our guidance materials, what we have done is in addition to putting out general guidance put out a series of guidance documents. So that there are specific actions associated with what need to be done with whatever transmission scenario you are in, but to prepare for other scenarios you could eventually be in. Systems ready and activate those systems now. That. D to prepare for it may happen in your country. There is some practical guidance we have on our website. Related to clinical operations. Finding locations where you can treat mild patients versus severe patients. Readying your work for so we can have people who have identified cases and Contact Tracing. To help find where you can quarantine your contacts there is practical information there to help you tailor that approach. What mike said around this comprehensive measures to get yourselves ready and activate systems now. Thank you very much. E will try now to connect can you hear us . Thank you. Over 20,000 people [inaudible] confirmed one was march 9. We are now in the fourth week of the epidemic. 112 cases. 1300 people have been tested. Recommend that . Ok. Has emerged from very difficult times, kosovo, and had to rebuild itself. I spent many months in kosovo. I know deeply the vulnerabilities of the challenges of the Health System in kosovo and the people have kosovo have faced over the years. The Health System is still vulnerable and it has many excellent professionals in it and has a hugely committed workforce. We do need to ensure that we have surveillance in place. Kosovo has built an earlymorning system, needs to build on this. We need to have the testing in place. We need to invest in building the communitys respond. So that you can deal with infected cases. Kosovo are across the water from italy. You are very close to some of the most intense epidemics in the world right now. The disease may excel. Warmest greetings to all my friends in kosovo. Thank you very much. We have more questions from the balkans. Lets go now to india. Do we have someone from india today . [indiscernible] please go ahead. Has the World Health Organization been tracking the developments in india . How do you comment on the progress made by india . How do you assess the results so far . I think it is a little early to assess the results of the lockup, but i think we need to assess the results of the response in general. Shutdowns are really just should just be part of an overall comprehensive strategy. Ast we need to be able to do societies and with the leadership of our government approaches to be able to commit a consistent policy for a period of time and then measure and see what we need to do next. We need to be very careful not to kneejerk. When do be careful not to changing policies every single day. Neede at the front line certainty in their days. Communities need certainty. It is important that we are consistent with communities and frontline workers. Messageso give clear about what we do for the next week or the next two weeks. Impact to evaluate the of that period of intervention. Then if we have to change, we change, and we communicate that clearly, and then we do it again and then we see how that works and that we gather the information and we consult with frontline workers and if we have to adjust or change. This is about adapt, adjust, implement. You have to keep doing that over and over and over again. I would love to say that there is an easy way to do this. I would love to say that there is a way out of this without that kind of hard work, but there isnt. We have to be comprehensive, we have to measure everything we do, we have to measure below the National Level. That if we have to use a lock down, if we do it as part of an overall comprehensive strategy. The director general has said in his speech, he has met a really huge attempt to limit the impact of the shutdowns on the people who are most at risk and people who are most vulnerable in india and that is great to see. We see increase in testing. We are seeing an increase in surveillance. We are seeing investment in the Health Care System to be able to deal with more cases, but it is certainly too early for anyone to determine the impact of the shutdown are locked in measures in disease transmission at this point. Thank you. The Health Issues are very important, as mike said. Add the othero side. Is thenow, this firstever coronavirus pandemic in the world, meaning there are many unknowns. Shutdowns or take other measures, we have to understand that we are in a learning process. We have to constantly learn from our action and just based on what we learn. But i would like to again , this is the firstever coronavirus pandemic and its behavior is still unknown. That is why we should always be in a learning mode. Not only the measures during shutdown, but should be the social and economic fact is that we should can that are. Doing, as iia is is very,y statement, very important. Duringdowns shutdowns, there will be economic consequences on the country at large. More importantly, individuals who give their labor for their daily bread could be affected the most. India is taking measures like the 24 billion u. S. Dollars package and not , this will cover the 800 million individuals as food rationed during the difficult times. To 204h transfers. Illion of course, 80 million household from gettingefit free cooking gas. That is the kind of support that should be given. We should see it from the angle of what the consequences of the Public Health measures will be on the immunity and try to support our citizens. This should be seen during this difficult time, during the , and that socalled is how we can get the best impact, but at the same time, cooperation from our community as we try to help them. But there was another important element i mentioned. I will repeat it. Countries cannot really support their society, especially during lockdown, especially on those Community Members who work for their daily bread. That is why we called on the International Community to have debt relief to support those countries. But as you also know, debt relief processes are lengthy. Is an are proposing. Xpedited process getting intonot be crisis in their communities will not get into crisis. Wes is a great time when need solidarity, not only for put the challenges many countries are facing as we speak. Pandemic. For the first time, caused by a coronavirus. Its behavior is not really known. And we have to stand in unison to fight this unknown and dangerous virus. I wanted to supplement with what was said. One of the things we are working very hard on is to systematically assess the response actions taken by countries. As the director just said, this is the first pandemic of a and we need to critically look at what countries are doing to see which actions have worked best. And which combinations of these have worked best. There is a lot of factors that go into this that relate to this comprehensive approach we have been talking about. What are the testing strategies countries are using and what is the percent positive they are seeing in terms of the numbers of test they have done . What is the surveillance strategy. How are countries looking at cases . Identifytrying to additional cases their existing respiratory disease surveillance systems. Public measures being applied . And when and where . What Movement Restrictions are put in place . When and where and for how long . Leadersgovernments and communicating with populations . What type of support is being provided to communities and how are we innovating and how are we conducting research to learn and see responses . All of these things need to be done at a National Level and at subNational Levels to see which actions are the most effective. We have evidence from asia in terms of a number of countries now that have broken it down into subNational Levels to look at what has been done where and what we have been saying about aggressively looking for cases, contactsases, findings , quarantining contacts, and isolating cases depending on their severity, but we also need to continually assess what is being done as the pandemic moves across the globe, so that we can build up the evidencebased to show what works and make sure that companies have a tailored approach to their response. Thank you very much. From india, we will move to scotland. Can you hear us . I can. Can you hear me . I can. Go ahead. , because of the pandemic millions of students around the world have had to put studies on hold. Can you elaborate on what the who and National Governments can do to aid students and educational institutions at this difficult time . Thank you. Thank allf all, we the medical, nursing, physioand other institutions around the world who have done such a fine job turning out such wonderful professionals who can help on the front line in so many countries. Clearly, we thank them. Those institutions and those individuals stepping forward. We also have to be sure that those individuals are protected, that they are doing work that theyre well trained and qualified to do, they are well supervised and that they actually can assist and add to the value of the response. Care to givey of the best possible care and we are using qualified professionals in any part of the medical system doing work that they are capable of doing and supervised in doing. It is also obviously very important that at some point these students, particularly the lead the ones near final exams have the opportunity to qualify and get into the system. National, medical nursing and other education policies have been adjusted and adapted to see how that can be achieved. I will pass to maria. To see if she has any further points on this matter. We will be happy to work with National Governments and National Medical nursing and other educational institutes to see if we can come up with rational policies to guide the completion of education for many particularly late stage students in the medical professions. Thank you very much. We will now go to russia. Russia 24. Can you hear us . I can hear you. Can you hear me . Yes, go ahead. Thank you very much for taking my austin reed we have seen a sharp rise. Can you please clarify about this and what we can do to help prevent it or is it just a myth . Carefulnk we have to be from what we would consider to be the traditional remedies that people use for making themselves feel better. Or thethe common cold flu or any of this. Some like to take a drink with honey, some like to take ginger, some of us take special herbal tea. Feeling that makes anyone better, anything that provides reassurance and anything you believe can help your health is not dangerous. Certainly, it has a positive impact on your health, but it is a different thing to Say Something is effective at treating the disease. At this moment, there is no therapy that has been proven to be effective in the treatment of covid19 dean. We have explained earlier about the solidarity trials and many other trials that are testing many different compounds around the world, including the ones that are most promising. I would advise people that if you have your favorite remedy you use like lemon, like ginger, please continue to support yourself through the illness. Makingase let us avoid assumptions without evidence that certain things can cure covid19. At the moment, there is no proven therapy. Maria . Thank you very much. That was russia 24. To world health alert crisis. Karen was with us almost every press conference. Please go ahead. Good afternoon. Good morning and good evening. , how canike to ask be persuaded that covid19 is a real threat . And what it does makes a difference. Some people still dont understand that if they fail to follow the physical distancing rules, they could be infecting toer people that may lead deaths further down the line. Or is it the case that some persuadeds need to be that what has happened in their community as a whole is really and that a greater sense of local Community Needs to be established in order for them to take on physical distancing . That is my question. For that question. I think you almost answer the question in your west and. In the sense that covid19 is a real threat. It is a real threat to everyone on the planet. It is a new virus, which means everyone is susceptible to infection. Causes virus that disease in people, which ranges from some individuals who have mild disease and a large proportion will have severe disease. Another 5 will have critical disease and some will die. So, many individuals who develop severe disease are older. But we have in a number of cases where younger people are dying. We have individuals in their 30s who are dying. We have individuals in their 40s and 50s who are dying. This is a virus that can be very serious and individuals and so it is a real threat. It not only has Public Health implications, but it has very Strong Social and economic implications. And Everyone Needs to understand that they have a role to lay. Every person has a role to play in this pandemic and a sense of duty to ensure that they take every caution that they can to protect themselves from getting infected and we have listed a number of ways in which people can protect themselves their hand hygiene and respiratory etiquette by removing opportunities for you to get infected. If you can prevent yourself from getting infected, you could prevent transmission to someone who may be more vulnerable who may prevent get more severe disease and died. That is a responsibility you have to protect yourself, your family, your community, and your loved ones. That is something that Everybody Needs to understand. Every person on the planet has a role to play here. They need to feel empowered to be able to do something about that to protect themselves. Thank you very much for that. Or two more for one questions. We will go to nigeria now. Inro star newspapers nigeria. Can you hear us . I can hear you good. Yourself . Go ahead. Ok. My question is this. [indiscernible] lagos. S a lockdown in the people are feeling the impact of the lockdown. Given to the Nigerian Government as a guideline to deal with the situation on the ground . Especially now that we have the lockdown . Thank you. The line wasnt the best, but my understanding is how who is helping nigeria in terms of medical supplies. Have been working very closely with nigeria since the beginning and particularly with the ministry of health. The director general and myself. Poke with the director general newre reviewing our support to nigeria and what we could do. We have been supporting thy gnostics, the creation and isolation facilities. We have been in nigerias , the nigeriaeams ministry of health for years. We dont come to nigeria, we dont arrive in africa, we are there every day of every week. Our other partners in the u. N. System. We have been beefing up our support, strengthening our Country Office in supporting medical and laboratory science. A strongas developed Public Health approach in the last number of years. First country in africa to establish a full center for disease control, which has been inaugurated by the government only last year. There were certainly challenges in the country is because nigeria with a diversity of climates and population, the , thesity of contacts Northern Nigeria all the way through the tropical zones in south nigeria, southern nigeria, the massive cities. There are challenges. We will continue to scale up our support. We will continue to ramp up our supporter around medical protective gear. They were very clear. We are continue to deliver that in the interests of the people of nigeria. Thank you very much. We will go to our last question of the night. We are trying, as you can see, to get questions from different places and different outlets. The last question, we go back here to switzerland. Can you hear us . Yes, i can hear you. Can you hear me . Yes, go ahead. Thank you for taking my question. We have learned china is now counting asymptomatic cases. In this light, how can the public trust the previous bybers that have been given them and if the World Health Organization agrees that numbers are important in this fight against the pandemic, what can be done to keep countries like china accountable and transparent blessed there can be publicrceptions by the that the who itself is being manipulated or taken for a ride in this crisis . Thank you. I think maria addressed the issue of asymptomatic before. I hope you were able to listen to that answer. I wont offer to repeat it. You can certainly listen to the transcript. With regard to the issues of transparency and working with countries, we work with all countries. If you look at the amount of data that has been put out by many countries, if you look at the amount of peerreviewed publications that have been made by colleagues from singapore, japan, other parts of china like hong kong, there has been a delusion of fantastic scientific debate, evidencebased publications coming out on a daily basis from colleagues in all of those situations. Had 27 different teleconferences going on today with experts all over the world sharing realtime information and they all include colleagues from china, colleagues from asia. I think we need to be very careful also not to be profiling certain parts of the world is being uncooperative or nontransparent and we need to look at transparency across the board. We need to look at solidarity across the board. We need to look at contributions across the board, we need to compare apples and apples and nges and oranges every of oranges. We need to look at the epidemic of switzerland. We need to look at other countries. If one country is only sampling cases over a certain age or certain symptoms, are they being nontransparent or other preserving a very precious diagnostic resort because they dont have the capacity to test. The lack of availability. Are we saying that the lack of precise information is it because of the lack of a system with a lack of patience. Every day, doctors and nurses struggling to provide care to mark other lacking in transparency and not sending who the data every day to mark we need to look at the context here. We need to show a little bit more balance. We need to be critical. We will work with every single country to ensure that we are getting the best possible data from them. At the same time, we need to be balanced and that and we need to recognize that symptoms under pressure find it hard to share everything on a minute to minute basis and i hope im not being too strident in my response, but frankly at times, i think we get overfocused on this issue. I just want to add something that in this era of this new virus, there are so many unknowns and questions that we have, which have been identified to our research and development, meaning that there are a lot of questions we still havent all of these teleconferences we are still having, people are sharing their experiences not only with who, but also with other countries. As an evidencebased organization, we rely on that data, on that evidence. In countries that are overwhelmed right now, they may not be able to capture that and report that and conduct those studies that need to be done, but other countries that are not as overwhelmed or that have higher levels of capacity, there is certain research that can be done right now that could answer critical questions around virus shedding, around transmission, around many different things, natural history, so it is almost like a call to action in the solidarity that we have for the virus to try to better capture so that and the results we could help other countries overwhelmed at the present time. We hope that it will continue, we know that it will continue. We hope we will collaborate with a large number of groups regularly through teleconferences. It is hard for us to keep up with the papers, but we have large number of teams going to the publications and we thank their who are sharing publication prepublication materials with us because it is all reviewed and fed into are evident. Evidence. Adding to that, i earlier said that this is the first ever pandemic caused by coronavirus. Also addthat, i would that it is a new virus. Virus, anda new second, it is the first ever pandemic. Two things. Meaning there are many unknowns. That is why some of the ins we didnt know may come today as known. Symptom asymptomatic cases that you said. Lets accept things with open mind. And trust what is coming. Of course, at the same time, ready to verify. Maybe i could give a specific example. Ive been sitting here all afternoon pouring over data with maria and we were just looking at some of the viral shedding all over the world and the information provided area we have information of a viral shedding the germany. That is what i was looking at. We think all of those countries for sharing that early data with us. This is helping us form policies on everything from the use of masks to the length of infection to many other risk factors in this disease. We understand some countries are at this moment in time. To add to that, we agree with many experts who are saying that there is better Global Cooperation now than previously. I think we should use better Global Cooperation needed, that is what we are seeing, but it is not enough. Moreed to continue to do in terms of cooperation, but we are at a better stage now in terms of cooperation. Thank you very much. This was a very Important Message to give to the world. We will conclude here. Transcript tomorrow or tonight, we will send you a number of links of the documents produced to give more detail about work the who is doing in different parts of the world. There will be advisories for press conferences, so please have a look at that. I will wish you a very pleasant evening. On friday, there will be a special guest, so see you on friday. See you on friday. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] television has changed since cspan began 41 years ago, but our mission continues, to provide an unfiltered view of government. Primarydy brought you election coverage, the president ial impeachment process , and other federal response to the coronavirus. Watch all of cspans Public Affairs programming on television, online, or on our free radio app and be part of the national conversation. Through our social media feed. Cspan, created by private industry, americas Cable Television company. As a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Journals washington live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up thursday morning, we will discuss how hospitals are responding to the coronavirus outbreak and then the center for growth and opportunity would look at the impact of federal regulations on covid19 response. Freelancers union talks about the impact of covid19