Airlines and the global economy are bracing for another jolt after the  World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic. The WHO made the declaration after revealing the number of cases out of China had increased 13 fold in the past two weeks as the number of affected countries tripled. The declaration has rattled already nervous markets and is likely to make travelers even more fearful. Stocks fell sharply on Wall Street after the announcement, bringing the Dow Jones into bear market territory. Airlines have been particularly hard hit by COVID-19 with huge capacity cuts at the worst affected. Cathay Pacific on Wednesday revealed it was cutting capacity by 65 percent and Korean Air's CEO earlier this week warned its survival is in question after it was forced to cut flying by 80 percent. READ: AIrlines slash more flights as fearful travelers stay home. The Lufthansa Group late Wednesday announced it was canceling 23,000 medium and long-haul flights between March 29 and April 24. The cuts mainly affect flights in Europe, Asia and the Middle east but the airline flagged further adjustments in the coming weeks. The last time WHO declared a pandemic was the 2009 H1N1 swine flu — the 2003 SARS epidemic to which COVID-19 is most often compared did not reach pandemic proportions. While noting there had never been a pandemic that could be controlled, WHO director-general  Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said countries could still change the course of the disease. However, he said some lacked the capacity, while others lacked the resources, and some "lacked the will". He did not name the recalcitrants. The number of cases is now changing rapidly and at the time of writing, there were  121,977 confirmed cases in 122 countries with 4,386 deaths, according to John Hopkins University. Tedros noted thousands more were fighting for their lives in a hospital in what he described as the first pandemic sparked by a coronavirus. “In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of cases, the number of deaths, and the number of affected countries climb even higher,’’ he said. “WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and we are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction. “We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic. “Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly. It is a word that, if misused, can cause unreasonable fear, or unjustified acceptance that the fight is over, leading to unnecessary suffering and death.” The director-general said WHO had been in full response mode since it was notified of the first cases and it had called for countries to take urgent and aggressive action, ringing the alarm bell “loud and clear”. But he noted the global figures did not tell the full story with more than 90 percent of cases in just four countries and two of those — China and South Korea — reporting significantly declining epidemics. “We cannot say this loudly enough, or clearly enough, or often enough: all countries can still change the course of this pandemic,’’ he said. “If countries detect, test, treat, isolate, trace, and mobilize their people in the response, those with a handful of cases can prevent those cases becoming clusters, and those clusters becoming community transmission. “Even those countries with community transmission or large clusters can turn the tide on this virus. “Several countries have demonstrated that this virus can be suppressed and controlled.”