The coronavirus sweeping across the world is a pandemic, the World Health Organization declared today. There are now over 118,000 cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, in 114 countries around the world.

The WHO continues to closely monitoring spread of the virus, said Tedros Adhanom, director general of the WHO, during the announcement. “We are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction,” he said. “We have called every day for countries to take urgent and aggressive action.”

There are large outbreaks of the virus in Italy, South Korea, and the United States. In the US, the slow rollout of testing and limited testing capacity has crippled response to the disease.

The spread of the virus can still be controlled, Adhanom said. He pointed to both China and South Korea, where outbreaks appear to be declining. “It’s doable.”

A pandemic is the “worldwide spread of a new disease,” according to the WHO. There’s no cut-and-dry criteria for what reaches the level of pandemic and what does not, and there is no threshold of cases or deaths that triggers the definition.

The WHO classified the novel coronavirus as a global public health emergency on January 30th. Until now, they’ve been reluctant to call the outbreak a pandemic over concerns that it would incite unnecessary panic, though they’d been warning countries to prepare for a pandemic. “Using the word pandemic now does not fit the facts, but it may certainly cause fear,” Adhanom said at a press briefing at the end of February. “What we see are epidemics in different parts of the world affecting different countries in different ways.”

Countries around the world, including in the US, have already been leaning on pandemic preparedness plans to respond to outbreaks of the new coronavirus.

The last time the WHO declared a pandemic was during the H1N1 outbreak in 2009, which infected nearly a quarter of the world’s population. However, that decision was criticized for creating unnecessary panic. SARS was not considered a pandemic, despite affecting people in 26 countries, and neither was MERS.

The first minister told the BBC's Politics Scotland they may have to consider closing schools and delaying non-urgent hospital procedures.

But she stressed that their decisions would be "really strongly underpinned" by scientific advice.

Eighteen people have so far tested positive for the Covid-19 virus in Scotland.

Ms Sturgeon said she expected the number to rise "perhaps rapidly in the days to come".

"It is now likely that we are facing a significant outbreak of coronavirus across the UK," she added.

However, the "vast majority" of infected people would experience only very mild symptoms and would not need hospital treatment.

Experts are currently working to contain the spread of the virus in Scotland.

The first minister said that when that "ceases to be possible" action will be taken to slow down its spread.

If they can reduce the number of infected people at any one time, that will reduce the pressure on the health service.

She admitted school closures "could be considered" in a bid to slow the spread of the virus but no decisions have been taken.

"There are balances - quite difficult balances - and quite difficult judgements to be made here," Ms Sturgeon said.

"We have some of the best scientists in the country looking at the kind of measures that would have the greatest impact on slowing down the spread of the virus.

"That has to be balanced by how practical those measures are to implement and, of course, the society and economic impact.

"There are some careful judgements that politicians and ministers will have to take but the focus is on doing everything we possible can to slow down the spread of this."

Work to increase capacity in hospitals could include the postponement of non-urgent procedures.

They are also considering opening facilities which are not routinely used, asking retired healthcare workers to return to work, and procuring additional equipment.

On the issue of welfare payments, the first minister said the Scottish government would do what it could within its powers to support the most vulnerable people affected by the virus

She said ministers were holding "good discussions" with the UK government on issues including the relaxation of Universal Credit.

"We don't want people who are doing the right thing - self-isolating to limit the spread of the virus - being sanctioned in terms of their benefits."

Earlier, on Sky News' Sophy Ridge On Sunday, Ms Sturgeon said the need for more funding for the NHS was "inevitable".

Chancellor Rishi Sunak is preparing to deliver the UK Budget on Wednesday. He told the BBC's Andrew Marr programme the NHS will get "whatever resources it needs".