March 11, 2020

It’s Official: Coronavirus Is a Pandemic

The WHO has announced the virus will likely spread to all countries in the world.

Mehdi Taamallah/NurPhoto/Zuma

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The World Health Organization officially declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, meaning that it will likely spread to all countries worldwide.

There have been more than 118,000 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 worldwide, according to WHO, and more than 4,000 people have died. The infection has been reported in 114 countries or territories, with the most severe outbreaks in China, Italy, and Iran.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO, said in a media briefing Wednesday that the global situation would worsen. But instead of focusing on the pandemic classification, he urged people around the world to focus on prevention and preparedness to mitigate the spread of the virus.

WHO’s public health advice remains the same: Practice frequent hand-washing, maintain your distance from people who are sick, avoid touching your face, stay away from large social gatherings when possible, and seek medical care if you have difficulty breathing.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

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