Meaning of noun + にあたる

Question

In this news there are these sentences:

WHO（世界保健機関）は感染が拡大するサル痘について、最高レベルの警告にあたる「緊急事態」を宣言しました。

WHOのテドロス事務局長は23日、サル痘について国際的に懸念される公衆衛生上の緊急事態にあたると宣言しました

I know the form N + にあたる as meaning "corresponding to, relating to, having to do with" and so on, but in these cases I'm having difficulties: the first sentences would be "WHO announced a state of emergency related to the high level warning about the monkeypox", which sounds odd to me because a state of emergency is declared about an illness. Does it just mean "declared a state of emergency of maximum level", にあたる literally meaning something like "a state of emergency equivalent to the maximum level"?

I'd read the second as "Made an announcement related to the state of emergency with respect to the internationally worrying publich health", but an automatic translation gave me "WHO Director-General Tedros declared monkeypox to be a public health emergency of international concern on March 23"; I know automatic translation are always trustworthy, but this seems good and sounds much less awkard that mine.

Moreover, I'm not sure if I'm reading 上 right: I think is this, "with respect to", but since I'm not really understanding the sentence I'm not sure.

I'm also not used to see this construction followed by と, which I think it's the quoting と (と思う, と言う, etc.): would it mean the same thing without にあたる, like サル痘について国際的に懸念される公衆衛生上の緊急事態と宣言しました? Or without と, maybe with を (サル痘について国際的に懸念される公衆衛生上の緊急事態にあたる宣言(を?)しました)?

About this construction I found this answer, but it doesn't seem to be the same case.

Answer 1

Essentially にあたる in the sense being used in the examples are copulas, replaceable by である.

A simple example is 彼は私の叔父にあたる = He is my uncle = 彼は私の叔父である.

For the examples:

WHO（世界保健機関）は感染が拡大するサル痘について、最高レベルの警告にあたる「緊急事態」を宣言しました。

would become WHO, regarding widely spreading monkeypox, declared a state of emergency, which is the highest level warning.

WHOのテドロス事務局長は23日、サル痘について国際的に懸念される公衆衛生上の緊急事態にあたると宣言しました

would become Tedoros ... announced, regarding the monkeypox, it is an state of emergency of international concern in terms of public health. (What is modified by 国際的に懸念される is ambiguous to me.)

---

For the questions:

• Yes, the と is a quote particle.
• In the second example, にあたる can be omitted. Then it would mean the same as the first one.
• 緊急事態にあたる宣言 would mean the announcement itself is an emergency, so it should be wrong.

On the second point, the difference between サル痘について緊急事態にあたると宣言する and サル痘について緊急事態と宣言する is subtle, but the former explicitly means the monkeypox itself is the emergency and the latter is more open about what exactly is the emergency (e.g., situation about monkeypox). I don't know the exact definitions, but practically they will be understood in the same way.