Difference between Pandemic, Endemic, Epidemic and outbreak?

Is the coronavirus a pandemic?

What is a pandemic? 

A pandemic is the worldwide spread of a new infectious disease.

It stretches over a larger area, infects more people and causes more deaths than an epidemic.

But the term refers to the spread of disease, not its potency or deadliness.

The World Heath Organisation (WHO) define a pandemic as “an outbreak of a new pathogen that spreads easily from person to person across the globe”.

In history there have been a number of devastating pandemics including smallpox, tuberculosis and the black death.
In 2009, a pandemic of swine flu killed many people worldwide.

What is an outbreak?

When more cases of a disease than expected are recorded in one area an outbreak is declared.

The area could be a small community or extend to several countries.

An outbreak could even be a single case of a contagious disease new to a community or one not seen for a long time.

What is an endemic?

An endemic is an outbreak that occurs at a predictable rate in a certain area or among a set population.

Chickenpox is classed as an endemic as it occurs at a high but predictable rate among youngsters.

Endemics remain at a steady state, but do not disappear from a population

What is an epidemic?

An epidemic will see a disease rapidly spread among a large number of people in a given population.

Epidemics may be the consequence of disasters of another kind, such as tropical storms, floods, earthquakes and droughts.

There have been 14 epidemics since 2010, including the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, which killed 11,300 people between 2013 and 2016.

In 2003, the Sars outbreak was classed as an epidemic – it killed nearly 800 people

Is the coronavirus a pandemic?

Yes , declared by WHO

Director General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus confirmed that the organisation has characterized coronavirus as a pandemic.

WHO headquarters : Geneva, Switzerland
Formation - 7 April 1948
Parent Organisation- UN Economical and Social  Council
Director General- Tedors Adhanom (Former Ethiopian Health Minister- Ethiopia is the same county whose Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali won Noble Peace Prize 2019)
Reports published by WHO- World Health Report
World Health Day- 7 April (Formation day of WHO)