196 people have died in Italy in one day alone, or the total deaths in the U.

K is now eight.

The chancellor has promised the N.

H s whatever resources it needs to cope, along with other measures to support affected industries and those in financial hardship.

More on those budget measures in a moment.

But first, here's our health and social care correspondent Victoria McDonald.

This is what a pandemic looks like.

The empty streets of Rome, an entire country and locked down.

This is what a pandemic looks like to hospital staff and full protection suits, patients breathing with the help of ventilators.

Overnight, the number of people in Italy diagnosed with covered 19 rose to more than 12,000 with more than 800 deaths Flying in the face of what seemed increasingly obvious, the World Health Organization resisted declaring a covered 19 pandemic for nearly two months today that changed.

This is the first panda me caused by a coronavirus, and we have never before seen a pandemic that can be controlled.

At the same time, W.

H O has been in full response.

More scenes.

We were notified off the first cases and we have called every day for countries to take urgent and aggressive action.

We have rang the alarm bell loud and clear from the epicenter and Wu Han and China.

It has spread and spread and spread again around the globe.

This new form of Corona virus and this is why it is now a pandemic.

In the past two weeks, the number of cases outside China has increased 13 fold, the number of affected countries has tripled, more than 118,000 people have been infected and 4291 lives have been lost.

Thousands Maur, the W H O, said of fighting for their lives and hospitals, and they expect to see those numbers climb even higher has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and we're deeply concerned both by the alarming levels, off spread and severity, and by the alarming levels off in action.

Pandemic has declared when an infectious disease spreads easily from person to person in many parts of the world.

Without a question, that is what has happened now.

Nothing will change for the UK response that some countries where they have perhaps not taking the threat seriously enough and do not have in place pandemic plans or testing facilities or the capacity to isolate and treat in intensive care.

It means that they need to really consider what how they could do this on din learn middle income countries.

That could be quite tricky on Dhe, particularly because health care system's already stretched on dhe.

They will need some support and assistance, and international funding will be made available to them.

More than 90% of cases are still in just four countries China, South Korea, Iran and Italy and South Korea.

They now believe they are past their peak and have been applauded for this beauty response.

Their advice is to focus efforts on early testing.

The W H.

O said that in Iran the situation is still serious, with a high number of deaths and sick people, and they called for global support for the clinical care off the infected.

The U.

K Sora, 22% rise in numbers from yesterday.

All trust in England have been told to identify areas now where they can treat infectious patients.

And sources have told Channel four news that already some hospitals of cleared wards and preparation and they are increasing the number of intensive care beds that can be opened, identify cases, isolating them and contact tracing that remains at the heart of the fight.

But for how much longer?

Tonight, the W.

H.

Joe said urgent and aggressive action is required by countries with significant outbreaks.

Retire McDonald We're joined out from Geneva by Dr Margaret Harris from the World Health Organization.

Thanks for coming on the program on such a busy day, Dr Harris.

Just tell us very clearly what by calling it a pandemic would make or should make the global response to this any different.

Good evening, what this really means and you're quite right to talk about us calling it We're characterizing it as a pandemic.

What this really means is we've gone from what we were saying for weeks.

We just get ready.

Get ready.

Get your ventilators ready.

Get your star, Freddie.

Now we're saying, take this really seriously.

It's here it's in your communities, but you still have a chance.

And this is the the the unusual thing about this virus.

You still have a chance to reverse it if you take the serious, sustained, aggressive action to find every person who could be infected, find all the people who've been in contact with them, work with them, help them understand that it's to their benefit and more importantly, to the benefit of the people they love that they do so far select.

They do quarantine to prevent on word spread that we all know.

Sergeant, What you're also saying quite clearly and actually alarming, is that we haven't got ready enough.

We've had weeks of this.

Now, you know, you've been warning about the effects of this.

You've been talking about washing hands and in some cases, self isolation.

We don't seem to have done enough.

And is that why we're in this while the sorry state of the moment, It's a very human characteristic to like think Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's not me that it's somewhere else.

It's somebody else.

It's somebody else's problem.

Now it's everybody's problem.

And as I was about to say the answer is in our hands.

It sounds simple.

The hand washing.

I'm also talking about not touching your mouth, nose and eyes and thinking about the ways not to take hand to mouth lots of different ways and the other really important strategy, social distancing.

So how can we limit the close physical contact, which is so much the norm?

We've never lived more closely than we do now because we are, even though where spread out we're so globalized with so close, we spend so much time actually in close physical contact.

Given that reality, does that not mean that countries where people are still going to schools and universities and restaurants and bars and museums should not be doing any of that?

Well, every country has an outbreak at a different stage, so the time when you can really stop it is when you've got a few cases in your community on That's a moment when you identify absolutely everybody around them.

You stopped the transmission then and you, but you also really mobilize your entire community.

You get everyone during the hand washing everyone paying attention to really good environmental hygiene.

Everyone understanding that might be a few cases.

But stopping this thing is everybody's business.

And where we've seen that happen in places like Singapore, they haven't stopped it completely.

But they slowed it enough.

So they are not seeing this terrible situation where you've got hundreds of people in hospital and on ventilators, overloading the health system.

Given that what you just said about Singapore, should we here in the United Kingdom be locking down our cities only if you get to a stage where you've got a really big sustained transmission in a particular community.

So this is very much a case by case.

Now you've got a big advantage.

You've got a fantastic public health system.

You've got very, very committed people.

I've heard about people being mobilized.

I've got friends and so on who are on the list on the roster, too.

Come in and help.

So you have actually made a lot of preparations.

So you have got the advantage.

But you still probably do need to persuade your community that this is serious at the time.

To do something about it is absolutely right now.

Okay, I keep pressing you for guidance because you're there and you know about this stuff should be shut down.

Football matches should be shut down.

You know, the Cheltenham races taking place this week with tens of thousands of people watching horses.

You know, jump on gallop Certainly must gatherings are a problem that they are an opportunity for people to come in close contact, especially as they have to queue.

Or they're in situation when they have to use public bathrooms and queue up.

But also, when you organize a mess gathering, if you decide to go ahead, you have to do very intense risk assessment and work out how to avoid a ll.

The incidents, all the opportunities for people to be jammed together, not able to maintain the hygiene and the social distancing that does need to be maintained to protect everyone.

Okay, Dr Margaret Howe said The W two.

Thank you very much indeed.

Let's go straight to Washington, D.

C.

Where we'll find Dr Jonathan Quick from the Duke Global Health Institute.

Dr.

Quick, thanks for coming on the program as well.

I mean, what the World Health Organization has basically said is that China, with its extraordinarily draconian measures, bought the world some time and that we've kind of squandered it.

Do you agree with that?

No.

I think two separate things were happening.

I think that the China has indeed done a superb job.

I think what we're but in the rest of world, I think there's been a strong response, but not strong enough.

And the problem didn't just start in January.

The problem?

You don't prepare for a crisis like this.

In four weeks and globally, we have been under investing in preparing, and we know it clearly.

Six months ago, the Economist Intelligence Units Unit, Johns Hopkins and NT I gave us our first map of the preparedness of 195 countries, and four out of five aren't prepared.

And that's not a surprise.

So I think we have to recognize that we there's been this pen cycle of panic and neglect.

Okay, we have a first Corona virus broke out of China in 2000 and three.

There was thousands of pages of reports, lots of promises, but we're still now almost 20 years later, Not as prepared as we should be.

Much more prepared than we were, but not as prepared as we should be.

Okay, This may be the wrong analogy, but you've written that you've written a lot about the Spanish flu of 1918 which killed more than 50 million people worldwide.

Are there any mistakes that we should have learned in after the 1918 Spanish flu that were committing again this time round?

Well, the key, the key lessons that came out of that is the importance of leadership at all levels and eso.

I think early on we didn't have leadership at the local level in China that that let's, um, some stumbling happen.

So that's one and that needs to be everywhere.

Messages from the top, that reassuring.

There's some basic principles about Be first, get the information out from from government sources.

Uh, be credible.

Say what?

You know.

Say what you don't know yet be be empathetic.

So leadership.

Okay, you get in there a couple of other lessons, right?

Sergeant Drug, Are you getting that leadership in the United States?

Because Donald Trump has been tweeting all sorts of contradictory things about this virus.

Are you getting that leadership in a country that matters to all of us?

The U.

S.

Well, certainly we have the strongest public health system at the CDC and the leadership in the, uh, in the health community.

And I think those messages have been coming down clearly from from people who are knowledgeable about epidemics and how to deal with those epidemics.

Okay, just brief.

You won't find.

Look, for so do you think that what you think of the United States and in the United Kingdom we should be doing what the Italians are doing now?

Because if I'm not careful, we're going to be like Italy in two weeks time.

So here's the important thing.

When you have no vaccine and you have no proven cure, you rely on public trust, understanding, trust, cooperation if you and it has to be based on what's appropriate for the epidemic in that setting.

If you call the alarm bell too early in a particular country, and too often when you do, people are going to say it's them calling the alarm bell.

So one of the principles is that each country, and in a big country each state needs to make that risk assessment based on the reality is there and then move quickly and decisively when it gets to the point where more decisive Where the Chinese would stage a crony in action.

More severe action is needed.

It has to be based on the local risk assessed.

Okay, Dr.

Jonathan Creek.

Go to leave it there.

Thank you very much indeed for joining us.