Definitions can range anywhere from “Effects a whole country” to “has spread to several large regions” to “threatens to affect the entire globe” but as a general rule the definitions shy away from saying global because then people will quibble about, like, Greenland not being effected because those bastards shut down the ports again.
So you could, for example, have a pandemic that spread through Europe and Asia but the swift and decisive actions of competent executives prevented the spread to the Americas.
It has varying definitions, but not quite.
Definitions can range anywhere from “Effects a whole country” to “has spread to several large regions” to “threatens to affect the entire globe” but as a general rule the definitions shy away from saying global because then people will quibble about, like, Greenland not being effected because those bastards shut down the ports again.
So you could, for example, have a pandemic that spread through Europe and Asia but the swift and decisive actions of competent executives prevented the spread to the Americas.