COVID‑19 pandemic
Confirmed cases per 100,000 population as of 20 November 2022   >3,000   1,000–3,000   300–1,000   100–300   30–100   0–30   None or no data
Cases per country Total confirmed cases per country as of 20 November 2022   1,000,000+   100,000–999,999   10,000–99,999   1,000–9,999   100–999   1–99   None or no data
Deaths per capita Confirmed deaths per million population as of 17 August 2020   100+   10–100   1–10   0.1–1   0–0.1   None or no data
Meeting of the Italian government task force to face the coronavirus outbreak, 23 February 2020 Clockwise, starting from top: A nurse caring for a COVID‑19 patient in an intensive care unit aboard a U.S. hospital ship Disinfection vehicles in Taiwan Donated medical supplies being received in the Philippines Burial in Iran The Italian government's outbreak task force
Disease	Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‑19)
Virus strain	Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2)[a]
Source	Probably bats, possibly via pangolins[2][3]
Location	Worldwide
First outbreak	China[4]
Index case	Wuhan, Hubei, China 30°37′11″N 114°15′28″E / 30.61972°N 114.25778°E / 30.61972; 114.25778
Date	1 December 2019 (2019-12-01)[4]–present (4 years, 9 months and 5 days)
Confirmed cases	775,866,783
Active cases	Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "{". (30.2% of total cases)
Recovered	(({recovered))}
Deaths	7,057,132
Territories	(({territories))}

The COVID-19 pandemic, also called the coronavirus pandemic, is a current pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). It is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).^[1][5][b] The outbreak started in Wuhan, Hubei, China, in December 2019. The World Health Organization (WHO) called it a pandemic on 11 March 2020.^{[6][7][8][9][10]} The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses gave the virus its name. As of 3 October 2020^[update], more than 34 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported in more than 188 countries and territories. More than one million people have died of COVID-19,^[11] and more than 23 million people have become better.^[11][12][13]

The virus usually moves from one person to another with small drops made when coughing^[14][15] or sneezing.^[16] It mostly spreads when people are close to each other. It can also spread when people touch a surface with the virus, and then they touch their face.^[15][16] Common symptoms include fever, cough, and trouble breathing.^[17] The illness can worsen with pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome.^[18] As of June 2020^[update], there is no vaccine or specific antiviral medicine for COVID-19.^[19] Doctors usually give patients supportive therapy instead.^[20] People can avoid spreading the virus by regularly washing their hands, covering their mouth when coughing, maintaining distance from other people, watching the symptoms, staying away from crowds, and being alone for people who think they are infected.^[19]

The outbreak might be from a coronavirus that usually lives in cats. This infected another animal, possibly a piano. It then changed inside that other animal until it could infect humans.^[21]

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Updated September 5, 2024.

COVID-19 pandemic by location^[22]

	Location	Cases	Deaths
	World[c]	775,866,783	7,057,132
	European Union[d]	185,822,587	1,262,988
	United States	103,436,829	1,193,165
	China[e]	99,373,219	122,304
	India	45,041,748	533,623
	France	38,997,490	168,091
	Germany	38,437,756	174,979
	Brazil	37,511,921	702,116
	South Korea	34,571,873	35,934
	Japan	33,803,572	74,694
	Italy	26,781,078	197,307
	United Kingdom	24,974,629	232,112
	Russia	24,268,728	403,188
	Turkey	17,004,718	101,419
	Spain	13,980,340	121,852
	Australia	11,861,161	25,236
	Vietnam	11,624,000	43,206
	Argentina	10,101,218	130,663
	Taiwan	9,970,937	17,672
	Netherlands	8,640,008	22,986
	Iran	7,627,863	146,837
	Mexico	7,619,458	334,551
	Indonesia	6,829,399	162,059
	Poland	6,670,799	120,726
	Colombia	6,391,876	142,727
	Austria	6,082,444	22,534
	Greece	5,673,681	39,258
	Portugal	5,664,109	28,809
	Ukraine	5,532,777	109,920
	Chile	5,401,126	62,730
	Malaysia	5,309,410	37,351
	Belgium	4,872,829	34,339
	Israel	4,841,558	12,707
	Canada	4,819,055	55,282
	Thailand	4,799,180	34,715
	Czech Republic	4,761,919	43,509
	Peru	4,526,977	220,975
	Switzerland	4,457,868	14,170
	Philippines	4,140,383	66,864
	South Africa	4,072,765	102,595
	Romania	3,541,619	68,825
	Denmark	3,435,679	9,693
	Singapore	3,006,155	2,024
	Hong Kong	2,876,106	13,466
	Sweden	2,755,181	27,399
	New Zealand	2,639,048	4,284
	Serbia	2,583,470	18,057
	Iraq	2,465,545	25,375
	Hungary	2,230,800	49,053
	Bangladesh	2,051,348	29,499
	Slovakia	1,878,002	21,227
	Georgia	1,863,615	17,150
	Jordan	1,746,997	14,122
	Republic of Ireland	1,745,088	9,744
	Pakistan	1,580,631	30,656
	Norway	1,512,647	5,732
	Kazakhstan	1,504,370	19,072
	Finland	1,499,712	11,466
	Lithuania	1,369,355	9,810
	Slovenia	1,356,582	10,083
	Bulgaria	1,329,988	38,700
	Croatia	1,317,144	18,752
	Morocco	1,279,115	16,305
	Puerto Rico	1,252,713	5,938
	Guatemala	1,250,371	20,203
	Lebanon	1,239,904	10,947
	Costa Rica	1,234,701	9,372
	Bolivia	1,212,147	22,387
	Tunisia	1,153,361	29,423
	Cuba	1,113,662	8,530
	Ecuador	1,077,445	36,050
	United Arab Emirates	1,067,030	2,349
	Panama	1,044,821	8,748
	Uruguay	1,041,346	7,682
	Mongolia	1,011,489	2,136
	Nepal	1,003,450	12,031
	Belarus	994,037	7,118
	Latvia	977,765	7,475
	Saudi Arabia	841,469	9,646
	Azerbaijan	835,757	10,353
	Paraguay	735,759	19,880
	Palestine	703,228	5,708
	Bahrain	696,614	1,536
	Cyprus	696,410	1,451
	Sri Lanka	672,798	16,907
	Kuwait	667,290	2,570
	Dominican Republic	661,103	4,384
	Myanmar	642,885	19,494
	Moldova	637,520	12,245
	Estonia	610,471	2,998
	Venezuela	552,695	5,856
	Egypt	516,023	24,830
	Qatar	514,524	690
	Libya	507,269	6,437
	Ethiopia	501,193	7,574
	Réunion	494,595	921
	Honduras	472,896	11,114
	Armenia	452,273	8,777
	Bosnia and Herzegovina	403,666	16,392
	Oman	399,449	4,628
	Luxembourg	393,542	1,000
	North Macedonia	350,924	9,978
	Zambia	349,842	4,077
	Brunei	347,723	179
	Kenya	344,106	5,689
	Albania	335,047	3,605
	Botswana	330,696	2,801
	Mauritius	328,167	1,073
	Kosovo	274,279	3,212
	Algeria	272,139	6,881
	Nigeria	267,188	3,155
	Zimbabwe	266,386	5,740
	Montenegro	251,280	2,654
	Afghanistan	235,214	7,998
	Mozambique	233,843	2,252
	Martinique	230,354	1,104
	Laos	219,060	671
	Iceland	210,374	186
	Guadeloupe	203,235	1,021
	El Salvador	201,920	4,230
	Trinidad and Tobago	191,496	4,390
	Maldives	186,694	316
	Uzbekistan	175,081	1,016
	Namibia	172,533	4,108
	Uganda	172,154	3,632
	Ghana	172,062	1,462
	Jamaica	157,181	3,611
	Cambodia	139,319	3,056
	Rwanda	133,264	1,468
	Cameroon	125,246	1,974
	Malta	122,796	922
	Barbados	108,582	593
	Angola	107,481	1,937
	Democratic Republic of the Congo	101,009	1,474
	French Guiana	98,041	413
	Senegal	89,485	1,971
	Malawi	89,168	2,686
	Kyrgyzstan	88,953	1,024
	Ivory Coast	88,434	835
	Suriname	82,501	1,406
	New Caledonia	80,163	314
	French Polynesia	79,387	650
	Eswatini	75,356	1,427
	Guyana	74,443	1,302
	Belize	71,414	688
	Fiji	69,047	885
	Madagascar	68,567	1,428
	Jersey	66,391	161
	Cabo Verde	64,474	417
	Sudan	63,993	5,046
	Mauritania	63,872	997
	Bhutan	62,697	21
	Syria	57,423	3,163
	Burundi	54,569	15
	Guam	52,287	419
	Seychelles	51,886	172
	Gabon	49,051	307
	Andorra	48,015	159
	Papua New Guinea	46,864	670
	Curaçao	45,883	305
	Aruba	44,224	292
	Tanzania	43,230	846
	Mayotte	42,027	187
	Togo	39,530	290
	Bahamas	39,127	849
	Guinea	38,572	468
	Isle of Man	38,008	116
	Lesotho	36,138	709
	Guernsey	35,326	67
	Faroe Islands	34,658	28
	Haiti	34,456	860
	Mali	33,166	743
	Federated States of Micronesia	31,765	65
	Cayman Islands	31,472	37
	Saint Lucia	30,282	410
	Benin	28,036	163
	Somalia	27,334	1,361
	Solomon Islands	25,954	199
	United States Virgin Islands	25,389	132
	San Marino	25,292	126
	Republic of the Congo	25,227	389
	Timor-Leste	23,460	138
	Burkina Faso	22,139	400
	Liechtenstein	21,588	89
	Gibraltar	20,550	113
	Grenada	19,693	238
	Bermuda	18,860	165
	South Sudan	18,823	147
	Tajikistan	17,786	125
	Monaco	17,181	67
	Equatorial Guinea	17,130	183
	Samoa	17,057	31
	Tonga	16,976	12
	Marshall Islands	16,297	17
	Nicaragua	16,185	245
	Dominica	16,047	74
	Djibouti	15,690	189
	Central African Republic	15,441	113
	Northern Mariana Islands	14,912	41
	Gambia	12,627	372
	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	9,518	315
	Comoros	9,109	160
	Antigua and Barbuda	9,106	146
	American Samoa	8,359	34
	Sierra Leone	7,979	125
	Liberia	7,930	294
	Chad	7,702	194
	British Virgin Islands	7,557	64
	Cook Islands	7,345	2
	Turks and Caicos Islands	6,805	40
	Sao Tome and Principe	6,771	80
	Saint Kitts and Nevis	6,607	46
	Palau	6,372	10
	Saint Barthélemy	5,507	5
	Nauru	5,393	1
	Kiribati	5,085	24
	Anguilla	3,904	12
	Wallis and Futuna	3,760	9
	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	1,074	—
	Tokelau	80	0
	Vatican City	26	0
	Pitcairn Islands	4	—
	North Korea	1	6
	Turkmenistan	0	0
↑ In summary, this article is about the coronavirus pandemic, which is caused by the disease COVID‑19, which is caused by the virus SARS‑CoV‑2.[1] ↑ To summarize, this article is about the pandemic, which is caused by the disease COVID-19, which is caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2. ↑ Countries which do not report data for a column are not included in that column's world total. ↑ Data on member states of the European Union are individually listed, but are also summed here for convenience. They are not double-counted in world totals. ↑ Does not include special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau) or Taiwan.

Epidemiology is the study of how diseases affect the health and illness of group.s of people

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,^[23][24] and an investigation was launched in early January 2020.^[25]

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.^[26]

Cases means the number of people who have been tested for COVID-19 and have tested positive.^[27]

Most people who contract COVID-19 recover. For those who do not, the time between the start of symptoms and death usually ranges from 6 to 41 days, typically about 14 days.^[28]

• 
  Total confirmed deaths due to COVID-19 per million people^[29]
• 
  Semi-log graph of daily deaths due to COVID-19 (seven-day average) in the world and top five current countries (mean with cases)
• 
  Case fatality rate of COVID-19 by country and confirmed cases
• 
  Case fatality rate of COVID-19 by country right now
• 
  COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 population from selected countries^[30]

On 11 March 2020, the WHO said that the pandemic could be controlled.^[6]

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.^[32]

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.^[33]

• 
  Map of the 2019–20 COVID-19 outbreak

    100,000+ confirmed cases

    10,000–99,999 confirmed cases

    1,000–9,999 confirmed cases

    100–999 confirmed cases

    10–99 confirmed cases

    1–9 confirmed cases

    No confirmed cases, no population, or no data available
• 

In February 2020, the WHO announced a name for the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2: COVID-19. It replaced the name "2019-nCoV."^[34] "Covi" is for "coronavirus," "D" for "disease," and "19" for the year 2019. 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.^[35]

According to an article in Market Watch dated on February 27, 2020, the overall case mortality rate in China was 2.3%. However, there were large differences between different age groups and between men and women. People over the age of seventy 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). 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.^[36]

On March 5, 2020, the WHO released the case fatality rate.^[37]

COVID-19 did not affect everyone in each country the same way.^[38] As of May 2020, APM Research Lab said the death rate among black Americans was 2.4 times as high as for whites and 2.2 times as high as for Latino and Asian Americans.^[39] 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.^[40]

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.^[41] In the United States, black citizens are more likely to work jobs where they serve the public and to ride on buses and trains rather than take their own cars to work, which 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.^[42] 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.^[42]

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.^[43]

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 Bangledesh, 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.^[44]

Native Americans in the United States have shown more deaths from COVID-19 than the rest of the U.S.^[45] 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.^[46]

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.^[45] 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. ^[47][45] The Waswanipi Cree in Canada, the Mapoon people in Australia, and many groups in South America already tried plans like these on their own.^[45][48]

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 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.^{[48] [49][50][51]}

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.^[52] Chinese state media said COVID-19 came from the United States to China and not the other way around.^[53] Some Americans thought the Chinese might have made it.^[54] Some Britons thought it might have been created by accident by 5G cell phone networks.^[55]

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.^[56] Within a few weeks, it became one of the most cited scientific papers in history, meaning that other scientists were reading and using it.

• 
  Growth in total confirmed cases
• 
  Cases in mainland China (see detailed breakdown)
• 
  Cases outside China
• 
  Semi-log plot of cumulative incidence of confirmed cases and deaths in China and the rest of the world (ROW)
• 
  Semi-log plot of daily new confirmed cases by region: Hubei Province, mainland China excluding Hubei, the rest of the world (ROW), and the world total
• 
  Semi-log plot of coronavirus daily deaths by region: Hubei Province, mainland China excluding Hubei, the rest of the world (ROW), and the world total
• 
  Case fatality rates by age group in China. Data through 11 February 2020.^[57]
• 
  The severity of diagnosed COVID19 cases in China^[58]

On December 31, 2019, China alerted WHO to several cases of unusual pneumonia in Wuhan, Hubei province. ^[59]

On January 20, 2020, Chinese premier Li Keqiang called for efforts to stop and control the pneumonia epidemic caused by a novel coronavirus.^[60] As of February 5, 2020, 24,588 cases have been confirmed,^[61][62] including in every province-level division of China.^[61] A larger number of people may have been infected, but not detected (especially mild cases).^[63][64] The first local transmission of the virus outside China occurred in Vietnam between family members,^[65] 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.^[66] 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.^[67][61] The first death outside China was reported in the Philippines, in a 44-year-old Chinese male on February 1.^[68], 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".^[69]

There has been testing which have showed over 6000 confirmed cases in China,^[70] some of whom are healthcare workers.^[71][72]

Confirmed cases have also been reported in Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong, the United States (Everett, Washington and Chicago),^[72] Singapore,^[73] Vietnam,^[74] France^[75] and Nepal.^[76]

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.^[77]

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.^[78]

• The first cases of COVID-19 were detected in Wuhan, Hubei, Mainland China in December of 2019.^[79]
• 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.^[80]
• 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^[81]
• On February  25, 2020 Asian Scientist Magazine reported  Chinese Scientists Sequence Genome Of COVID-19 ^[82]
• According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention China had the largest number of confirmed cases  and deaths on March 1, 2020 ^[83]
• 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.^[84]
• 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.^[85]
• Cases going down ^[source?]
• Economy affected many factories shut down ^[source?]

• The first case of COVID-19 in the United States was detected in  ^[source?]
• "Don’t worry" attitude ^[source?]
• On February 27, 2020, Trump appointed Pence to lead US response to COVID-19 ^[86]
• On February 29, 2020, the first death was reported from Washington state^[87]
• On March 3, 2020 CBS reported 15 States with confirmed cases. ^[88]
• Elbow bumps replacing handshakes ^[source?]
• One million test kits to be distributed^[89]
• March 9, 2020: Stock market approaching bear territory^[source?]
• Scattered reports that some are quarantined while their household members are not^[90]
• United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar says that it is not known how many tested positive because many of the test kits went out to private companies ^[source?]
• New York governor, Andrew Cuomo announced that New Rochelle NY is the largest cluster of COVID-19 cases in the United states ^[source?]
• Between September to October, there has been a COVID-19 outbreak at the White House, causing many officials being diagnosed with the infection including President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump

• On March 6, President Trump signed a $8.3 billion emergency spending package to fight the COVID outbreak^[91][92]
• Medical costs for Washington state residents asking to be tested will be waived until May. ^[source?] (People have to pay for their own health care in the United States. See: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act).
• March 9, 2020: Stock market approaching bear territory^[source?]
• President Trump announces a payroll tax cut to help the US economy ^[source?]

• 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.^[93]
• On March 4, 2020, according to the Guardian,the Italian government has ordered the closure of all of Italy's schools and universities until 15 March, 2020^[94]
• On March 5, 2020 the Guardian reported: "Italian educational institutions close as Covid-19 deaths pass 100"^[95]
• On March 8,2020, Al Jazeeera reported that after a daily increase of 1,247 cases, Lombardy together with ten other areas were sealed off in an effort to quarantine 16 million people^[96] Milan and Venice are in the quarantined area. ^[97]
• March 10, 2020, Italy under quarantine. ^[98][99]

• On 28 February 2020 the BBC reported COVID-19 deaths in Iran were at least 210^[100]
• 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.^[101][102]

• Covid cases have been reported in Ontario, British Columbia(BC) and Alberta ^[source?]
• Shortage of hospital beds even in good times ^[source?]
• Privacy vs public good (Fraser valley case) ^[source?]
• Most cases in British Columbia Presumptively confirmed positive had an Iran connection.^[source?]
• One case in British Columbia is a man from Seattle, Washington state ^[source?]
• March 5, 2020 University Canada West announced shutting down for three days ^[103]
• March 9, 2020, first COVID-19 related death reported^[source?]
• March 9, 2020, No community spread of COVID-19 found in Ontario, all reported cases had a travel cconnection ^[source?]
• March 9, 2020, four provinces had reported cases of COVID-19: Ontario (34),British Columbia (32), Alberta (7) and Quebec (4), only one case of community spread (not travel-related) reported in BC ^[source?]
• March 9, 2020, warnings issued regarding non-essential travel including cruise ship travel ^[source?]
• March 9, 2020, "Feds chartering plane to repatriate Canadians on California cruise ship" ^[104]
• March 10, 2020, Chrystia Freeland announces : concrete measure will be taken soon ^[source?]

• First case reported on 25 January 2020.^[105]
• See COVID-19 pandemic in Australia

COVID-19 cases have been reported in most parts of New Zealand. The quick response by New Zealands prime minister meant that they have completely overcome the virus and is soon to go to Level 1 of their plan. There were clusters popping up all over New Zealand including one at a wedding and one at a rest home(which lead to many deaths). Even so not many have died, the numbers are in the teens. School and non-essential workplaces have gone back to work as their are no active cases in the country. (This was written by someone who is from New Zealand)

• 17 February 2020 the BBC reported: "Coronavirus: Japan cruise ship's US passengers home for further quarantine"^[106]
• Nineteen crew members of the cruise ship off the coast of California tested positive ^[107]
• Another Crew Member Suspected of Contracting Coronavirus^[108]

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.^[109]

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.^[109]

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.^[109][110]

All over the world, children who ate meals at school had less access to food when the schools were shut down.^[109]

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 out of of 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.^[111] Federal and state governments started programs to bring food to older people and children. There were also more food donation drives in towns.^[110]

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.^[112]

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%.^[113] 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.^[114]

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.^[115]

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.^[116][117]

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.^{[118][119][120]} 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.^[121]

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.^[122]

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.^[123][124]

• SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19
• 2019-nCoV is the old name for SARS-CoV-2
• Coronavirus disease 2019 is another 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
• lockdown
• presumptive confirmed positive
• quarantine
• sealed off

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• Category:COVID-19

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• WHO site for COVID-19
• CDC site for COVID-19
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