COVID-19 pandemic

Background

On 31 December 2019, Chinese health authorities reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) a cluster of viral pneumonia cases of unknown cause in Wuhan,^[8][9] and an investigation was launched in early January 2020.^[10]

On 9 June 2020, a Harvard University study suggested that COVID-19 may have been spreading in China as early as August 2019, based on hospital car park usage and web search trends.^[32]

Cases

Cases means the number of people who have been tested for COVID-19 and have tested positive.^[33] These cases are according to Johns Hopkins University.

Deaths

Almost all people who get COVID-19 recover. For those who do not, the time between the start of symptoms and death usually ranges from 6 to 41 days, but most of the time about 14 days.^[34] This data are recorded by the WHO.

According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, COVID-19 makes people feel sick in different ways, but it usually affects the lungs. People usually cough and have difficulty breathing. They often also have a fever, chills, headache, pain in their muscles, or trouble tasting or smelling things,^[36] which can often be confused with the flu virus.^[37]

According to an April 2020 study by the American Gastroenterological Association, COVID-19 can make sick people vomit or have diarrhea, but this is rare. They said about 7.7% of COVID-19 patients vomited, about 7.8% had diarrhea and about 3.6% had pain in their stomachs.^[38]

Since there is no exact cure for Covid-19, treatment has focused on treating the symptoms of the disease such as giving oxygen and using machines to aid breathing, giving pain killers to relieve pain, supportive treatment such as giving fluids, food and drugs to combat other symptoms and diseases that affect the person at the same time. Doctors have tried different medicines to see if they help in treatment such as colchicine, systemic corticosteroids (particularly dexamethasone), interleukin-6 receptor antagonists (such as tocilizumab), and Janus kinase inhibitors (such as baricitinib) have been seen to reduce mortality and have other benefits in patients with severe covid-19, such as reducing the severity of the disease and reducing the length of hospital stay.

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  Map of the COVID-19 outbreak

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    1,000–9,999 confirmed cases

    100–999 confirmed cases

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    1–9 confirmed cases

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Updated March 31, 2024.

COVID-19 pandemic by location^[39]

	Location	Cases	Deaths
	World[c]	774,954,379	7,040,264
	European Union[d]	185,596,049	1,260,605
	United States	103,436,829	1,182,424
	China[e]	99,343,195	122,046
	India	45,032,655	533,521
	France	38,997,490	167,985
	Germany	38,437,756	174,979
	Brazil	37,519,960	702,116
	South Korea	34,571,873	35,934
	Japan	33,803,572	74,694
	Italy	26,717,246	196,816
	United Kingdom	24,911,885	232,112
	Russia	24,031,776	402,374
	Turkey	17,004,681	101,419
	Spain	13,980,340	121,852
	Australia	11,812,024	24,894
	Vietnam	11,624,000	43,206
	Argentina	10,095,225	130,608
	Taiwan	9,970,937	17,672
	Netherlands	8,635,672	22,986
	Mexico	7,702,809	334,958
	Iran	7,627,186	146,811
	Indonesia	6,828,884	162,056
	Poland	6,661,489	120,694
	Colombia	6,384,097	142,727
	Austria	6,081,287	22,534
	Portugal	5,642,999	28,122
	Greece	5,626,890	38,970
	Ukraine	5,532,818	109,920
	Chile	5,343,520	61,769
	Malaysia	5,276,312	37,348
	Belgium	4,860,586	34,339
	Israel	4,841,558	12,707
	Canada	4,785,855	54,492
	Thailand	4,768,647	34,576
	Czech Republic	4,758,766	43,498
	Peru	4,524,748	220,831
	Switzerland	4,452,907	14,188
	Philippines	4,140,383	66,864
	South Africa	4,072,636	102,595
	Romania	3,525,696	68,704
	Denmark	3,434,511	9,631
	Singapore	3,006,155	2,024
	Hong Kong	2,876,106	13,466
	Sweden	2,751,264	27,240
	Serbia	2,583,470	18,057
	New Zealand	2,499,815	3,882
	Iraq	2,465,545	25,375
	Hungary	2,230,249	49,048
	Bangladesh	2,049,155	29,492
	Slovakia	1,877,633	21,224
	Georgia	1,862,085	17,132
	Jordan	1,746,997	14,122
	Republic of Ireland	1,734,839	9,560
	Pakistan	1,580,631	30,656
	Norway	1,507,093	5,732
	Kazakhstan	1,503,687	19,072
	Finland	1,499,712	11,466
	Lithuania	1,365,371	9,801
	Slovenia	1,355,814	10,042
	Bulgaria	1,329,041	38,696
	Croatia	1,309,728	18,687
	Morocco	1,279,006	16,304
	Puerto Rico	1,252,713	5,938
	Guatemala	1,250,295	20,200
	Lebanon	1,239,904	10,947
	Costa Rica	1,230,653	9,368
	Bolivia	1,198,018	22,384
	Tunisia	1,153,361	29,423
	Cuba	1,115,043	8,530
	Ecuador	1,068,532	36,032
	United Arab Emirates	1,067,030	2,349
	Panama	1,039,444	8,671
	Uruguay	1,037,893	7,625
	Mongolia	1,011,503	2,284
	Nepal	1,003,450	12,031
	Belarus	994,037	7,118
	Latvia	977,701	7,465
	Saudi Arabia	841,469	9,646
	Azerbaijan	835,219	10,353
	Paraguay	735,759	19,880
	Palestine	703,228	5,708
	Bahrain	696,614	1,536
	Cyprus	681,110	1,365
	Sri Lanka	672,751	16,897
	Kuwait	667,165	2,570
	Dominican Republic	661,103	4,384
	Myanmar	641,895	19,494
	Moldova	635,245	12,224
	Estonia	610,226	2,997
	Venezuela	552,695	5,856
	Egypt	516,023	24,830
	Qatar	514,524	690
	Libya	507,269	6,437
	Ethiopia	501,157	7,574
	Réunion	494,595	921
	Honduras	472,783	11,114
	Armenia	451,831	8,777
	Bosnia and Herzegovina	403,603	16,387
	Oman	399,449	4,628
	Luxembourg	391,229	1,000
	North Macedonia	350,573	9,976
	Zambia	349,404	4,069
	Kenya	344,094	5,689
	Brunei	343,653	178
	Albania	334,863	3,605
	Botswana	330,638	2,801
	Mauritius	327,256	1,070
	Kosovo	274,279	3,212
	Algeria	272,010	6,881
	Nigeria	267,188	3,155
	Zimbabwe	266,359	5,740
	Montenegro	251,280	2,654
	Mozambique	233,765	2,252
	Afghanistan	232,403	7,982
	Martinique	230,354	1,104
	Laos	218,955	671
	Iceland	209,913	186
	Guadeloupe	203,235	1,021
	El Salvador	201,813	4,230
	Trinidad and Tobago	191,496	4,390
	Maldives	186,694	316
	Uzbekistan	175,081	1,016
	Namibia	172,399	4,106
	Uganda	172,149	3,632
	Ghana	171,839	1,462
	Jamaica	156,797	3,595
	Cambodia	139,097	3,056
	Rwanda	133,218	1,468
	Cameroon	125,137	1,974
	Malta	121,404	904
	Barbados	108,075	593
	Angola	107,327	1,937
	Democratic Republic of the Congo	99,338	1,468
	French Guiana	98,041	413
	Malawi	89,168	2,686
	Senegal	89,056	1,971
	Kyrgyzstan	88,953	1,024
	Ivory Coast	88,384	835
	Suriname	82,496	1,405
	New Caledonia	80,064	314
	French Polynesia	79,254	650
	Eswatini	75,191	1,427
	Guyana	73,947	1,300
	Belize	70,808	688
	Fiji	69,047	885
	Madagascar	68,490	1,426
	Jersey	66,391	161
	Cabo Verde	64,474	417
	Sudan	63,993	5,046
	Mauritania	63,848	997
	Bhutan	62,697	21
	Syria	57,423	3,163
	Burundi	54,565	15
	Guam	52,287	419
	Seychelles	51,656	172
	Gabon	49,051	307
	Andorra	48,015	159
	Papua New Guinea	46,864	670
	Curaçao	45,883	305
	Aruba	44,224	292
	Tanzania	43,223	846
	Mayotte	42,027	187
	Togo	39,528	290
	Guinea	38,572	468
	Bahamas	38,084	844
	Isle of Man	38,008	116
	Lesotho	36,138	709
	Guernsey	35,326	67
	Faroe Islands	34,658	28
	Haiti	34,298	860
	Mali	33,164	743
	Cayman Islands	31,472	37
	Saint Lucia	30,073	409
	Benin	28,036	163
	Somalia	27,334	1,361
	Federated States of Micronesia	26,547	65
	Solomon Islands	25,954	199
	United States Virgin Islands	25,389	132
	San Marino	25,292	126
	Republic of the Congo	25,215	389
	Timor-Leste	23,460	138
	Burkina Faso	22,109	400
	Liechtenstein	21,574	89
	Gibraltar	20,550	113
	Grenada	19,693	238
	Bermuda	18,860	165
	South Sudan	18,819	147
	Tajikistan	17,786	125
	Monaco	17,181	67
	Equatorial Guinea	17,130	183
	Samoa	16,962	31
	Tonga	16,950	12
	Marshall Islands	16,138	17
	Dominica	15,760	74
	Nicaragua	15,733	245
	Djibouti	15,690	189
	Central African Republic	15,440	113
	Northern Mariana Islands	14,341	41
	Gambia	12,626	372
Template:Country data Collectivity of Saint Martin	Collectivity of Saint Martin	12,324	46
	Vanuatu	12,019	14
	Greenland	11,971	21
	Yemen	11,945	2,159
	Caribbean Netherlands	11,922	41
	Sint Maarten	11,051	92
	Eritrea	10,189	103
	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	9,674	124
	Guinea-Bissau	9,614	177
	Niger	9,515	315
	Comoros	9,109	160
	Antigua and Barbuda	9,106	146
	American Samoa	8,359	34
	Liberia	7,930	294
	Sierra Leone	7,779	125
	Chad	7,698	194
	British Virgin Islands	7,392	64
	Cook Islands	7,203	2
	Turks and Caicos Islands	6,750	40
	Sao Tome and Principe	6,736	80
	Saint Kitts and Nevis	6,607	46
	Palau	6,265	9
	Saint Barthélemy	5,507	5
	Nauru	5,393	1
	Kiribati	5,085	24
	Anguilla	3,904	12
	Wallis and Futuna	3,550	8
	Macau	3,514	121
	Saint Pierre and Miquelon	3,426	2
	Tuvalu	2,943	1
	Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha	2,166	—
	Falkland Islands	1,923	—
	Montserrat	1,403	8
	Niue	993	—
	Tokelau	80	0
	Vatican City	26	0
	Pitcairn Islands	4	—
	North Korea	1	6
	Turkmenistan	0	0

In February 2020, the WHO announced a name for the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2: COVID-19. It replaced the name "2019-nCoV."^[40] "Covi" is for "coronavirus," "D" for "disease," and "19" for the year 2019 – the year it was first detected. They said they did not want the name to have any person, place, or animal in it because people might blame the disease on that place, person, or animal. For example, it did not use the word "Wuhan." They also wanted the name to be easy to say out loud.^[41]

According to an article in Market Watch dated on February 27, 2020, the overall case mortality rate in China was 2.3%. However, these results might be severely different between different age groups and between men and women. People over the age of 70 experienced a rate of mortality 4-5 times that of the average. Men were more likely to die than women (2.8% versus 1.7% for women) possibly due to lifestyle, such as it being more possible in men to drink and smoke, making the risk of having a respiratory illness more possible, and thus more vulnerable.^[42] These numbers were the conclusion of a study by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention using 72,314 COVID-19 cases in mainland China as of Feb. 11. At that point this was the largest sample of cases for such a study.^[43]

On March 5, 2020, the WHO released the case fatality rate.^[44]

COVID-19 did not affect everyone in each country the same way.^[45] As of May 2020, APM Research Lab said the death rate among black Americans was 2.4 times as high as for white Americans and 2.2 times as high as for Latino and Asian Americans.^[46] In July 2020, The New York Times printed data from the Centers for Disease Control showing that black and Latino Americans were three times as likely to become sick and twice as likely to die as white Americans. This was not only in large cities but also in rural areas. This was not only for old people but for people in all age groups. Native Americans were also more likely than whites to become sick and die. Asian Americans were 1.3 times as likely as whites to become sick.^[47]

Camara Jones, an epidemiologist who once worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this was socioeconomic and not because of any natural difference in black and white people's bodies.^[48] In the United States, black citizens are more likely to work jobs where they serve the public directly and to ride on public transport rather than take their own cars to work. This makes them more likely to be infected than people who work in private offices or from home. Sharrelle Barber, an epidemiologist and biostatistician from Drexel University, also said black Americans can live in crowded neighborhoods where social distancing is harder to do and healthy food harder to find.^[49] Both Barber and Jones blamed the long history of racism in the United States for these things. Three senators, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren said the federal government should start recording the race of COVID-19 patients so scientists could study this problem.^[49]

In June, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) told the public that people using the United States' government's Medicare health program had different results depending on race. Four times as many black Medicare patients went to hospitals for COVID-19 than white Medicare patients. There were twice as many hospitalized Hispanic patients than white patients. There were three hospitalized Asian patients for every two hospitalized white patients. The head of CMS, Seema Verma, said this was mostly because of socioeconomic status.^[50]

In the United Kingdom, twice as many black COVID-19 patients died as white COVID-19 patients. Other non-white people, like people from India and Bangladesh, were also more likely to die of COVID-19 than whites. Britain's Office of National Statistics said that the differences in money and education explained some of this difference but not all of it. They also said they did not know whether non-white patients caught COVID-19 more often or whether they caught more severe cases. Only female Chinese Britons were less likely to die of COVID-19 than white Britons.^[51]

Indigenous peoples

Native Americans in the United States have shown more deaths from COVID-19 than the rest of the U.S.^[52] As of May, the Navajo Nation had 88 deaths and 2,757 cases, and the money they had been promised by the government arrived several weeks late. Only 30% of the people in the Navajo Nation have pipes with running water, which made it difficult for people to wash their hands.^[53]

Scientists from Chapman University made a plan to protect the Tsimane people in Bolivia from COVID-19 and said this plan would also work for other indigenous peoples living on their own land. The scientists said that many indigenous peoples have problems that make COVID-19 more dangerous for them, like poverty, less clean water, and other lung diseases. Hospitals may be a long distance away, and racism can affect the way doctors and nurses react. But they also sometimes have things that help, like traditions of making decisions together and the ability to grow food nearby.^[52] The scientists found people who spoke the Tsimane language as a first language and made teams to go to Tsimane towns to warn them about COVID-19. They also used radio stations. They said the best plan was for whole communities to decide to isolate. They found this worked well because the Tsimane already usually made their big decisions together as a community in special meetings and already had a tradition of quarantining new mothers. The Chapman scientists said their plan would also work for other indigenous peoples who also make decisions together, like the Tsimane.^[52][54] The Waswanipi Cree in Canada, the Mapoon people in Australia, and many groups in South America already tried plans like these on their own.^[52][55]

George Floyd protests

In May 2020, police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota killed an unarmed black man called George Floyd while they were arresting him. There were weeks of protests all over the world against police brutality and racism. Experts said they were worried protesters and police could spread SARS-CoV-2 to each other. Other experts said some of the reasons that the protests were so big was because non-white people were being killed by COVID-19 more than white people were, because poor leadership in the COVID-19 crisis reminded them of poor leadership about racism, and because the lockdowns shut down workplaces and other things. This meant people had more time to protest.^{[55][56][57][58]}

African Americans

African Americans are more likely to catch the virus compared to their white counterparts in the United States,^[59] and are also more likely to die from it.^[60][61] 50,000 African Americans died of COVID-19 in 2020.^[62] African Americans are the least likely to get vaccinated against the disease.^[63]

Hispanics

Latinos have been at a higher risk of hospitalization or death from COVID-19 in the United States.^[64] There are many reasons why Latinos have a higher risk of getting very sick or going to the hospital because of COVID-19. One reason is that they often have health problems like diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. They are also more likely to have jobs where they have to be around other people, like in healthcare, grocery stores, and farming. Many Latinos live in crowded places with many people, like big families or busy neighborhoods. This makes it hard to stay far away from others and can make the virus spread more easily. Some Latinos might not speak English well, which can make it hard to get healthcare or understand how to stay healthy. Finally, many Latinos don't have health insurance or don't have enough of it. All of these things are connected and can make it more likely for Latinos to get very sick from COVID-19.

In early 2020, some people began to think that the SARS-CoV-2 may have been made on purpose in a laboratory and either released by accident or on purpose like a weapon. Some Iranians thought the Americans might have made it.^[65] Chinese state media said COVID-19 came from the United States to China and not the other way around.^[66] Some Americans thought the Chinese might have made it.^[67] Some Britons thought it might have been created by accident by 5G cell phone networks.^[68]

On March 17, 2020, scientists from Columbia University and other places published a paper in Nature Medicine showing that SARS-CoV-2 was almost surely not made by humans in a laboratory. They did this by comparing the genomes of different viruses to each other.^[21] The scientists saw that SARS-CoV-2 did not match any of the viral backbones that already exist for virologists to use.^[69] Within a few weeks, it became one of the most cited scientific papers in history, meaning that other scientists were reading and using it.

There were also several conspiracy theories circulating about Bill Gates and his alleged involvement with the COVID-19 pandemic. Theories wrongfully linking Gates to the coronavirus were mentioned 1.2 million times on television or social media between February and April of 2020.^[70] One of the most prominent ones was that Bill Gates somehow created or engineered the virus as part of a plan to depopulate the world. There is no evidence to support this claim, and it has been debunked by numerous experts in the field and fact checking organizations including the the National Institutes of Health^[71] and Reuters.^[72] Some conspiracy theorists allege that Bill Gates is using the pandemic to profit from the development and distribution of vaccines and other medical treatments. While Gates has been heavily involved in funding research on vaccines and treatments for COVID-19, he has not personally profited from this work. In fact, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated over $2 billion to COVID-19 efforts since the start of the pandemic.^[73][74]

One of the impacts of these conspiracy theories is that they have generated fear and suspicion towards COVID-19 vaccines.^[75] Bill Gates commented on the impact of these theories, saying: "During the pandemic, there were tens of millions of messages that I intentionally caused it, or I'm tracking people. It's true I'm involved with vaccines, but I'm involved with vaccines to save lives."^[76]

• 
  Case fatality rates by age group in China. Data through 11 February 2020.^[77]
• 
  Epidemic curve of daily new cases of COVID-19 (7 day rolling average) by continent
• 
  Semi-log plot of weekly new cases of COVID-19 in the world and top five current countries (mean with deaths)
• 
  COVID-19 total cases per 100,000 population from selected countries^[78]
• 
  COVID-19 active cases per 100,000 population from selected countries^[78]
• 
  COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 population from selected countries^[78]

On December 31, 2019, China alerted WHO to several cases of unusual pneumonia in Wuhan, Hubei province.^[79]

On January 20, 2020, Chinese premier Li Keqiang called for efforts to stop and control the pneumonia epidemic caused by a novel coronavirus.^[80] As of February 5, 2020, 24,588 cases have been confirmed,^[81][82] including in every province-level division of China.^[81] A larger number of people may have been infected, but not detected (especially mild cases).^[83][84] The first local transmission of the virus outside China occurred in Vietnam between family members,^[85] while the first local transmission not involving family occurred in Germany, on January 22, when a German man contracted the disease from a Chinese business visitor at a meeting.^[86] As of 5 February 2020^[update], 493 deaths have been attributed to the virus since the first confirmed death on January 9, with 990 recoveries.^[81][87] The first death outside China was reported in the Philippines, in a 44-year-old Chinese male on February 1.^[88] but another source reported:"The first cases of COVID-19 outside of China were identified on January 13 in Thailand and on January 16 in Japan".^[89]

There has been testing which have showed over 6000 confirmed cases in China,^[90] some of whom are healthcare workers.^[91][92]

Confirmed cases have also been reported in Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong, the United States (Everett, Washington and Chicago),^[92] Singapore,^[93] Vietnam,^[94] France^[95] and Nepal.^[96]

The World Health Organization declared that this is a Public Health Emergency of International Concern since January 30, 2020.

Bloomberg News and other business publications have reported several plant closures, travel restrictions, and imposed quarantines as a result of this outbreak.^[97] Many small businesses, even big ones, have gone bankrupt because of the pandemic.

As of February 10, 2020 there have been 40,235 confirmed cases reported of people infected by the virus in China. Also reported were 909 deaths, and 319 cases in 24 other countries, including one death, according to WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.^[98]

On November 14, 2020, there were 53,853,718 global COVID-19 cases and 1,311,524 deaths with cases in 217 countries and territories.^[99]

China

• The first cases of COVID-19 were detected in Wuhan, Hubei, Mainland China in December 2019.^[100]
• On Feb. 4, 2020, the Seattle Times reported that Around 2020 Chinese new year authorities closed down travel from China to Macau. As a result, visits fell eighty percent.^[101]
• Feb 6, 2020, the COVID-19 whistleblower, Li Wenliang, dies of the disease.
• On February 6, 2020, according to Chinese authorities, a man from the United States who tested positive for the virus died.^[102]
• On February 25, 2020 the Asian Scientist Magazine reported Chinese Scientists Sequence Genome Of COVID-19 ^[103]
• According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention, China had the largest number of confirmed cases and deaths on March 1, 2020.^[104]
• On March 3, 2020 Science (journal) reported:
  • China built two new hospitals in one week just for patients of COVID-19
  • The article praised the way China has handled this crisis, but said "draconian" measures were used to achieve success.^[105]
• On March 6, 2020, CNN reported that a hotel used as a COVID-19 quarantine center collapsed. Seventy people were trapped in a collapsed Quanzhou hotel.^[106]
• The Chinese economy was greatly affected by the virus, and many factories shut down during the spike of cases in China during the early months of the pandemic.^[107]
• As of October 30, 2020, the number of cases of the virus in China were generally going down, with only 771 new cases being reported in the month of October.^[108]

United States

• The first case of COVID-19 in the United States was detected in a man from the state of Washington on January 21, 2020.^[109]
• On February 27, 2020, US President Donald Trump appointed Vice President Mike Pence to lead the US response to COVID-19.^[110]
• On February 29, 2020, the first death in the US was reported from the state of Washington.^[111]
• On March 3, 2020 CBS reported 15 states with confirmed cases.^[112]
• Movements such as elbow bumps began replacing handshakes , as handshakes spread the virus and bacteria more.^[113]
• On March 6, 2020, the CDC announced that one million test kits would be distributed.^[114][115]
• On March 9, 2020, the US stock market was approaching bear territory.^[116]
• On March 9, 2020, there were also scattered reports that some were quarantined while their household members were not.^[117]
• On March 10, 2020, the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, said that it is was not known how many Americans tested positive for the virus. This was because many of the test kits went out to private companies.^[118]
• On March 10, 2020, the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, announced that the city of New Rochelle was the largest cluster of COVID-19 cases in the state. Among other things done to contain the virus in New Rochelle, the National Guard was sent to the city to hand out food and disinfect buildings.^[119]
• On March 26, the United States surpass Italy and China's cases, becoming the epicenter for a while.^[120]
• On April 3, 2020, the CDC first recommended the use of cloth face coverings by the general public to reduce the spread of the virus in places such as grocery stores and pharmacies.^[121]
• On April 11, the U.S. became the most death in the world.^[122]
• On July 22, 2020, the United States surpassed 1,000 daily COVID-19 deaths for a second time.^[123]
• On September 22, 2020, the United States reached 200,000 deaths from the virus.^[124]
• Between September to October, there was a COVID-19 outbreak at the White House, causing many officials to be diagnosed with the infection, including President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump.^[125]
• In December 2020, California surpassed over 30,000 new cases in a day.^[126]
• On December 11, 2020, the Food and Drug Administration said doctors could give people the Pfizer vaccine.^[27][29]
• On December 14, 2020, the State of New York gave people the first vaccines, starting with health care workers.^[27][29]
• On December 26, 2020, California had a record breaking 65,055 new cases in a day after Christmas.^[127]
• California became the first state to surpass 2 million cases in December 2020.^[128]

Economic effects of COVID-19 in the United States

• On March 6, President Trump signed a $8.3 billion emergency spending package to fight the COVID outbreak.^[129][130]
• On March 5, 2020, it was announced that medical costs for Washington state residents asking to be tested would be waived until May.^[131] (People have to pay for their own health care in the United States. See: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act).
• On March 9, 2020, President Trump proposed, among other measures, a payroll tax cut to help the US economy.^[132]

Italy

• On February 27, 2020, according to the EU Observer, a dozen towns in the northern regions of Lombardy and Veneto were under lockdown, with around 50,000 citizens not allowed to leave, and over 200 reported cases of COVID n Italy.^[133]
• On March 4, 2020, according to the Guardian , the Italian government has ordered the closing of all of Italy's schools and universities until 15 March, 2020^[134]
• On March 5, 2020 the Guardian reported: "Italian educational institutions close as Covid-19 deaths pass 100"^[135]
• On March 8, 2020, Al Jazeera reported that after a daily infection rate of 1,247 cases, Lombardy together with ten other areas were sealed off to try to quarantine 16 million people.^[136] The cities of Milan and Venice were in the quarantined area.^[137]
• On March 10, 2020, it was reported that Italy was under quarantine.^[138][139]
• On October 5, 2020, Italy imposed a new lockdown and set of restrictions after previously relaxing them. This was due to a second wave of cases that was even worse than the one in spring.^[140]

Iran

• On 28 February 2020, the BBC reported COVID-19 deaths in Iran were at least 210.^[141]
• March 3, 2020 multiple Iranian government officials including deputy health minister Iraj Harirchi and vice president of women and family affairs Masoumeh Ebtekar, who served as a spokesperson during the Iran hostage crisis, had contracted COVID-19.^[142][143]

Canada

• The first case of COVID-19 in Canada was detected in a man from Toronto on January 25, 2020.^[144]
• On March 12, 2020, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, the wife of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, tested positive for coronavirus. The Prime Minister and his wife isolated for 14 days.^[145]
• On April 6, 2020, Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, Theresa Tam, said that people should use simple cloth facemasks to help slow the spread of the virus.^[146]
• On May 1, 2020, Canada surpassed 200 daily coronavirus deaths.^[147]
• On November 12, 2020, Canada surpassed 5,000 daily COVID-19 cases.^[147]
• On December 26, 2020, Canada confirmed first two cases of mutant coronavirus strain from England.^[148]

South Africa

• The new coronavirus strain, called the 501.V2 Variant, was first discovered in South African province Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape. It spreads more rapidly.^[149]

Australia

• First case reported on 25 January 2020.^[150]
• See COVID-19 pandemic in Australia

New Zealand

• The first case of COVID-19 in New Zealand was detected in late February 2020 in a person in their 60s.^[151]
• On March 24, 2020, New Zealand reported over 100 daily coronavirus cases for the first time.^[152]
• From April to November 2020, New Zealand reported between 0 and 50 daily cases.^[152]
• Between August 25, 2021 and August 31, 2021, the whole of New Zealand had been temporarily increased to its maximum lockdown level, Level 4, due to the delta variant.^[153] Most of the cases during August 2021 were originated from New South Wales.^[154] As of September 6, 2021, all of New Zealand has dropped to Level 2, while Auckland remains at Level 4.^[153]

Cruise ships

• On the Diamond Princess cruise ship, out of 3,711 total passengers and crew members, 621 people, or 17% of all the people on board the ship tested positive for COVID-19. The ship ended its quarantine on February 18th.^[155]

Africa

• In late February 2020, Nigeria had it's first case in Sub-Saharan Africa which negatively affected Nigeria's economy, education, religion and social relationships.^[156]
• In November 2020, Africa surpassed 2 million cases.^[157]

The pandemic made it more difficult for millions of people all over the world to get enough food. People lost their jobs, so they did not have money to buy food. Farms were shut down, so there was less food made. Processing plants and food factories were shut down, so less food was made ready for people to eat.^[158]

In April, Arif Husain of the United Nations' World Food Program said that 130 million more people could go hungry, in addition to the 135 million who were already hungry before the pandemic began. He said that poorer countries would be more affected than rich countries because the way they move raw food from farms to cities and other places where people live is less organized and relies more on human beings than on automatic systems.^[158]

This hunger crisis is different from crises in other years because it happened to the whole world at the same time. That meant that people working in other countries could not help by sending money home.^[158][159]

All over the world, children who ate meals at school had less access to food when the schools were shut down.^[158]

Scientists from the University of Michigan said the pandemic was making it harder for people to find food. In a study published in May, they said one in seven Americans over age 50 said they had trouble getting enough food before the pandemic, and it got worse when senior centers that provided meals were closed.^[160] Federal and state governments started programs to bring food to older people and children. There were also more food donation drives in towns.^[159]

In the United States, nursing homes had some of the highest rates of infection and death,

40% of all COVID-19 deaths in the country. Nursing homes are group homes for old people who need medical care, for disabled people who need medical care, and for people recovering from severe sickness or injury, like stroke patients.

Many people who live in nursing homes pay through the government program Medicaid, which pays less than Medicare or regular insurance companies. In June, many American nursing homes were caught throwing their regular patients out so they could make room for COVID-19 patients who could pay them more. Because nursing homes had stopped allowing visitors, it took longer for them to get caught. United States law requires nursing homes to warn patients 30 days before kicking them out, but the nursing homes did not do this.

Some of the nursing homes took the COVID-19 patients because state governments asked them to and they say they sent their elderly residents away because they were worried they would catch COVID-19 from the sick patients.^[161]

Because so many governments told people to stay at home, there was less air pollution than usual for that time of year. Pollution in New York fell by 50% and the use of coal in China fell by 40%.^[162] The European Space Agency showed pictures taken from a satellite of China's pollution disappearing during quarantine and coming back when everyone went back to work.^[163]

The pandemic and shutdowns made people use less electricity. In the United States, people got less of their electricity from coal power but kept using gas and renewable power like wind and solar power. This was because coal plants are more expensive to run, so power companies used them less.^[164]

Pollution from before the pandemic also affected what happened after people became sick. Scientists saw that more people died from COVID-19 in places with large amounts of air pollution. One team of scientists from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg looked at air pollution information from satellites and statistics on COVID-19 deaths in Italy, France, Germany and Spain and saw that places with large amounts of nitrogen dioxide pollution had more people die from COVID-19. Nitrogen dioxide can damage the lungs.^[165][166]

The shutdowns and social distancing also affected animals. Human beings started staying at home about the same time in the spring when sea turtles like to come on land to lay their eggs. Turtle scientists in the United States and Thailand both reported more nests than usual on seashores in Florida and Phuket. They say it is because people are not coming to the beach or bringing their dogs to the beach and because there are fewer boats in the water nearby. Scientists also say they see more dugong and dolphins.^{[167][168][169]} With fewer cars driving down roads, salamanders, frogs, and other amphibians were able to cross them for their spring migration. According to citizen scientists from Big Night Maine, a group that watches amphibians, four amphibians made it across the roads alive for every one amphibian killed by cars. Most years, it is only two to one.^[170]

Not all ocean mammals did well. According to marine biologists in Florida, manatee deaths in April and May were 20% higher than in 2019. They say this was because many people decided to go boating because other things to do were closed.^[171]

Researchers from the San Diego Zoo Global had the idea for a system that people could use to find dangerous germs before they become pandemics or even before they jump from other animals to humans. They said it was important to watch the wildlife trade, like in the Wuhan wet market. The scientists said that over the past eleven years it has gotten easier and easier to sequence viral genomes, and it does not have to be done by a large lab or by a government any more. The scientists said it would be better to spread the work out among more people.^[172][173]

• SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19
• 2019-nCoV is the old name for SARS-CoV-2
• Coronavirus disease 2019 is the complete name for COVID-19
• Community spread is the spread of the disease without a known travel connection
• Clusters are groups of COVID-19 cases in which many people in the same area became infected with COVID-19

Wikinews has related news:

• Category:COVID-19

Wikimedia Commons has media related to COVID-19 pandemic.

• WHO site for COVID-19
• CDC site for COVID-19
• WHO questions on COVID-19
• Novel Coronavirus Map Infographics, Channel News Asia
• Johns Hopkins University coronavirus statistics (until March 10, 2023)