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WHO's Tedros: Pandemic remains a public health emergency of international concern

The coronavirus pandemic remains a public health emergency of international concern, World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday.

Additional takeaways

"Will reconvene COVID-19 Emergency Committee again in 90 days, or sooner if needed."

"WHO has grave concerns about the potential virus could have as it starts to accelerate in countries with weaker health systems."

"Will work with countries and partners to enable essential travel for pandemic response, and to gradually resume normal passenger travel."

"January 30 declaration of global emergency was enough time for the rest of the world to respond because we only had 82 cases and no deaths outside of China."

"WHO used the days before declaring a global emergency to go to China to learn more about virus, win ground-breaking agreement with China for who-led investigation."

Market reaction

Risk-off flows continue to dominate the financial markets on Friday. As of writing, Wall Street's main indexes were erasing between 1.2% and 3.15% on a daily basis.

Author

Eren Sengezer

As an economist at heart, Eren Sengezer specializes in the assessment of the short-term and long-term impacts of macroeconomic data, central bank policies and political developments on financial assets.

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