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Health

How badly prepared is the world for a coronavirus pandemic?

By Debora Mackenzie

4 March 2020

鶹ý. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Bruce Aylward led an international mission to study China’s response to the virus

Fabrice Coffrini/Getty Images

LAST week, the World Health Organization raised its assessment of the global risk from the novel to Very High – its maximum level. The virus has escaped containment in at least four countries.

But the WHO is eager for nations to keep practising containment measures (see “Why the WHO won’t use the p-word”). These can slow the spread of the virus in countries that only have a few cases. But as long as it is circulating somewhere in the world, new cases will…

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