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Europe now epicenter of world’s coronavirus pandemic, WHO chief says

People wearing a protection mask walk across Piazza Raffaele de Ferrari in Genoa, Liguria, on March 13, 2020. (MARCO BERTORELLO/AFP via Getty Images)

The head of the World Health Organization says Europe, not China, is now the epicenter of the world’s coronavirus pandemic.

Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva that “more cases are now being reported every day than were reported in China at the height of its epidemic.”


He noted that “5,000 people have lost their lives, a tragic milestone.”

He says Europe now has “more reported virus cases and deaths than the rest of the world combined, apart from China.”

Over 135,000 people have been infected worldwide, the most in China, where over 3,000 patients have died and over 62,000 have already recovered.