Pandemic IN China

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Hypothesis: Covid-19 (aka coronavirus, Wuhan virus) spread had become a pandemic BEFORE it left the borders of China.

Pandemic (n.): 

(1) (of a disease) prevalent over a whole country or the world. (Google)

(2) an outbreak of a disease that occurs over a wide geographic area and affects an exceptionally high proportion of the population : a pandemic outbreak of a disease. (Merriam Webster)

(3) A pandemic (from Greek πᾶν pan "all" and δῆμος demos "people") is an epidemic of disease that has spread across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or worldwide. (Wikipedia)

So on the balance a widespread disease that has ONLY occurred in "mainland" China could be considered a "pandemic."

Also, the sheer numbers of people and internal border controls in China make a spread within its population equivalent to a spread over multiple  international borders. For example:

Hubei Province has 58 million citizens, which equivalent to the populations of England or Burma. Hubei is the center of the outbreak with Wuhan being epicenter and multiple other populations centers effected. Thousands of people have been infected in multiple provinces.

Given that a pandemic really had already occurred WITHIN the borders of China with epidemics in multiple locations, the World Health Organization is irresponsible for pussy footing around the definition of a pandemic and failing to declare a pandemic. 

Also, when the virus actually did present itself as pandemic across traditional international boundaries, the WHO was grossly negligent  by using politically-correct, non-triggering language. Actually, China and the WHO were negligent, when COVID-19 was only confirmed within the borders of Hubei. 

In the past, pandemics spread relatively slowly. The plague took years. The Spanish Flu took many months. Now with international trade and leisure travel available to the masses, and since the masses are so much more massive, the response to biological threats needs to more rapid and sophisticated. 

COVID-19 took one month to become a epidemic, another month to become an intranational pandemic, and another month to become an international pandemic.

Yes, the response to this threat is better than even SARS, but  systems we have in place are still dependent on the fears and ambitions of the individuals implementing them.

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