Coronavirus has had an awesome spread, and now to the consternation of the World Health Organisation. The number of new coronavirus cases that were officially reported outside China has overtaken those reported by Beijing for the first time since the outbreak began. According to WHO, as many as 427 cases were reported by 37 countries on Tuesday, compared with 411 by the Chinese authorities.

The public health network has been rendered out of joint in several countries in Europe and South-east Asia. While it may be a while before the prognosis is spelt out, there is no room for conjecture. By the yardstick of care and cure, China has shown the way, even if some of the means it adopted were possible only in a totalitarian state.

Efforts now need to be initiated in the afflicted countries given the scale of the global emergency. It will not be enough to impose curbs on travel by people; prevention of the spread makes a concerted effort imperative. While 96.5 per cent of the total number of 80,980 cases reported so far are in China, the latest figures on new infections suggest that Beijing’s strict response to the crisis is paying off.

The virus has killed 2,715 people and infected more than 78,000 in China. A further 52 deaths inside the country were reported last Wednesday ~ the lowest number in three weeks ~ with no fatalities outside the centre of the outbreak in Hubei province. China’s National Health Commission also reported a drop in the number of new infections to 406, with only five outside Hubei. In the rest of the world there have been more than 40 deaths and 2,700 cases.

In a curious reversal of the narrative, Beijing’s health commissioner has announced that the capital will quarantine people for 14 days at home or in groups if they had been to countries seriously affected by the coronavirus. At another remove, the number of cases in Italy, France, Iran and South Korea is continuing to rise ~ a trend that WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described as “deeply concerning”, but short of a pandemic.

In France, the Louvre, the world’s most visited museum, is closed after the staff refused to work over fears about the virus. South Korea, described as the “biggest nest of infections” outside China, reported 202 infections on Monday, raising the toll beyond 4,000. In Italy, Europe’s hardest hit country, infections nearly doubled to 1700 cases over the weekend. Beyond the semantic quibbling over the scale of the spread must lie the dire necessity to control it.

India too can scarcely afford to be complacent; while the number of reported cases in the country is still low, it will take very little for that situation to change if the experiences of South Korea, Iran and Italy are any indication.The responsibility of the comity of nations is total as a health emergency plagues more and more countries.