Eight more coronavirus cases confirmed in New Jersey

New Jersey Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli on Wednesday reported eight new coronavirus cases in the state, bringing the state total of infections to 23.

The latest cases, Persichilli said, are in Bergen County, Middlesex County, and Monmouth County.

As of Wednesday there were over 1,000 cases of coronavirus in the United States.

The World Health Organization described the coronavirus outbreak as a pandemic for the first time on Wednesday, and Britain and Italy showed growing concern about the economic impact by announcing multi-billion-dollar war chests to fight the disease.

The United States also said it was considering new steps to battle the virus that emerged in China in December and has spread around the world, halting industry, grounding flights, closing schools and forcing events to be postponed.

"We are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction," Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva.

"We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic," he said, using the formal name of the coronavirus.

There are now more than 118,000 infections in 114 countries and 4,291 people have died of the virus, with the numbers expected to climb, Tedros said.