Good morning, good afternoon and good evening. On Friday, the Emergency Committee on COVID-19 met and reviewed the current pandemic.
It was a sobering moment coming six months on from when the Committee advised, and I agreed, that the outbreak constituted a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.At the time, 30 January, there were fewer than 100 cases and no deaths outside of China.
When the Committee met three months ago, three million cases of COVID-19 had been reported to WHO, and more than 200,000 deaths.
Since then, the number of cases has increased more than fivefold to 17.5 million, and the number of deaths has more than tripled, to 680,000.