Introduction

Early December, a human got infected with a completely new coronavirus (CoV), and by mid-December, an unusual pneumonia outbreak was detected in Wuhan, China. Whilst the world was preparing to celebrate the new year, Dr Li Wenliang posted a warning message to his colleagues about unusual pneumonia cases. On the 30th of January 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) had declared a global health emergency. The responsible agent was identified through deep sequencing. Deep sequencing is a powerful technique that allows sequencing of billions of nucleotide in a single run. This new virus has temporarily been named 2019-nCoV; from the initial infection in 2019, where n stands for novel (new) and CoV means coronavirus. On the 11th of February, the name COVID-19 was chosen for the 2019-nCoV. COVI refers to coronavirus, D for disease, and 19 for the year of the outbreak. Do note that COVID-19 describes the disease and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) describes the virus.

Coronaviruses are pathogens under the family coronaviridae. These coronaviridae viruses tend to cause respiratory, central nervous system, hepatic and gastrointestinal symptoms in humans. They can be transmitted to wild animals and use them as carriers or reservoirs. This is seen in the earlier outbreaks of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2002/2003 and 2012 respectively. These outbreaks demonstrated an animal-human transmission and later human-human transmission.

It has been estimated that there are about 1.6 million viruses that scientists have not yet encountered and identified. At the moment only 3 000 have been adequately identified, that is only 0.19%. These viruses could easily infect an animal and then be transmitted to a human being; however, these are quite rare events. These random, sporadic and new coronavirus emergence will likely increase due to ecology and climate change, and through human expansion. These changes will bring animals and humans closer together and hence increase our interactions with carriers. With current technology, it would take about five years to create a new vaccine against a novel virus, but 2020 has shown that with international collaborative efforts, new vaccines can be dramatically sped up. None of the less, in the future scientist and technology innovations could bring this time down to only 16 weeks.

See part 1 for more information: “The 2019-Novel Coronavirus: Everything You Need to Know and How to Protect Yourself”.

DEFINITIONS:

Epi: act as a prefix and is taken from Greek meaning “on, upon, at, by, near, over, on top of, toward, against, among”.

Pan: act as a prefix and is taken from Greek meaning “all, everything”.

Demic: from deme + ic. Deme, from the Greek word dêmos meaning “district, people, commons”. Ic, is a suffix meaning “of, pertaining to, resembling”.

Epidemic: affecting or tending to affect a disproportionately large number of individuals within a population, community, or region at the same time. We can then describe epidemic as “upon, people, pertaining to”.

Pandemic: occurring over a wide geographic area and affecting an exceptionally high proportion of the population. We can then describe epidemic as “all, people, pertaining to”.

Historical timeline of the 2019-nCoV (COVID-19):

2019

X October/November — It is hypothesised that the first infection of the 2019-nCoV occurs at this time due to the incubation time between the infection and the symptoms surfacing. The virus may have been transmitted silently for a period of time. It is plausible that the infected person brought the 2019-nCoV to the Wuhan Huanan seafood market. Another plausible scenario is that the origin was a group of infected animals or a single animal that came into that marketplace.

1 December — First patient showing symptoms.

8-18 December — 7 cases are documented, 2 were linked with the Huanan seafood market. An outbreak is detected in Wuhan.

21 December — Chinese epidemiologists of the Chinese CDC documents the first cluster of patients with "pneumonia of an unknown cause". The article is released on the 1st of January.

30 December 11:43 GMT — Dr Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital, posts a warning message to the alumni of his medical school class.

31 December — Chinese authorities inform WHO’s China office of pneumonia cases in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, with an unknown cause.

2020

January

1 January — Officials close the Huanan seafood market.

3 January — China reports a total of 44 suspected patients with the mystery disease, 2/3 are linked to the seafood market. Wuhan police summoned and admonished Dr Li Wenliang for "making false comments on the Internet".

7 January — Cause identified; it is a new coronavirus.

8 January — Dr Li Wenliang contracts the 2019-nCoV from a patient he was treating.

9 January — First fatality.

12 January — China shares the genetic sequence of the novel coronavirus. Dr Li Wenliang is hospitalised.

13-16 January — International exposure.

17 January — Passenger screening.

21 January 19:45 GMT — First US case confirmed.

21 January — WHO confirms human-to-human transmission of the virus.

22 January 20:00 GMT — World Health Organization delays decision on an emergency declaration.

23 January 04:00 GMT — Chinese government closes off Wuhan; the city is quarantined.

23 January 15:00 GMT — Chinese authorities lock down Huanggang; the city is quarantined.

23 January 20:00 GMT — World Health Organization decides against the emergency declaration.

23 January — Hospitals are overwhelmed.

27 January 03:00 GMT — Death toll rises.

27 January 13:30 GMT — Scientists estimate how quickly the virus spreads.

28 January 05:00 GMT — Cases increase by more than 60%.

28 January 16:00 GMT — First human-to-human transmission outside China.

29 January 04:00 GMT — Australian researchers grow the virus in cell culture.

30 January 17:45 GMT — Human-to-human transmission confirmed in the United States.

30 January 19:45 GMT — World Health Organization declares a global emergency.

31 January — More countries are applying border control measures against foreign nationals with recent travel history from China.

February

2 February — The first 2019-nCoV death outside China is reported in the Philippines.

4 February 11:00 GMT — Cases in China pass 20,000.

6 February 18:58 GMT — Dr Li Wenliang passes away due to complications from the 2019-nCoV. Let us not forget those who tried to warn, protect the public and make the right moral and ethical decisions.

7 February 10:15 GMT — Global infections pass 30,000.

10 February 04:30 GMT — Deaths in China surpass toll from SARS.

10 February 11:30 GMT — Pangolins (long-snouted, ant-eating mammals often used in traditional Chinese medicine) claimed as outbreak source.

10 February — An advance team for the WHO-led 2019-nCoV international mission leaves for China.

11 February — WHO assigns the novel coronavirus its official name: COVID-19. The outbreak claims over 1,000 lives.

15 February — First death in France; first death from COVID-19 outside of Asia.

17 February — China publishes a paper with detailed information on more than 44,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19. The data appears to show that COVID-19 is not as deadly as other types of coronaviruses.

19 February — The death toll from COVID-19 surpasses 2,000.

24 February — "We must focus on containment, while doing everything we can to prepare for a potential pandemic” says WHO

27 February — China’s emerging cases are reducing. This suggests the efforts to prevent transmission is working. Containment is still possible as a global pandemic is not inevitable.

28 February — WHO raises the global risk of spread of COVID-19 from “high” to “very high.”

29 February — The World Health Organization updates its guidance on travel restrictions.

March

1 March — The death toll from COVID-19 surpasses 3,000.

7 March — The number of COVID-19 cases surpasses 100,000.

8 March — Northern Italy quarantines 16 million people.

9 March — Italy is being placed on lockdown due to coronavirus.

11 March 16:56 GMT — COVID-19 officially declared a pandemic by the WHO, as deaths pass 4,000.

12 March — Donald Trump has suspended all travel to the US from Europe for 30 days.

13 March — “Europe has now become the epicentre of the pandemic, with more reported cases and deaths than the rest of the world combined, apart from China,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu says during a press conference.

18 March — European Union seals borders to most outsiders. The ban will be for 30 days and will include 26 EU states.

20 March — The death toll from COVID-19 surpasses 10,000 with 245,000 confirmed cases in 179 countries; however, almost 80,000 people have recovered from the COVID-19.

21 March — More restrictions as virus cases and death rise. UK pubs and restaurants told to shut in virus fight.

24 March — Pandemic is ‘accelerating’, WHO warns as cases pass 300,000. It took 67 days to reach the first 100,000 cases, 11 days for the next 100,000 cases (100,000-200,000) and 4 days for the next 100,000 cases (200,000-300,000). Europe’s battle against the virus intensifies. The International Olympic Committee members are thinking to postpone the Olympics by 1 year; they have 4 weeks to decide. Australia and New Canada have already pulled out of the 2020 Olympics.

25 March — India enters total lockdown after a spike in cases increased.

26 March — The death toll from COVID-19 surpasses 20,000. Spain deaths go beyond 4,000.

27 March — The US is now the global epicentre of the pandemic as at least 82,404 people have been testes positive. This was to be expected as more tests are being carried out. The US overtook China in the number of cases and questions China’s data regarding the COVID-19.

30 March — The death toll from COVID-19 surpasses 34,000 with 720,000 confirmed cases.

April

1 April — The number of deaths from COVID-19 globally has more than doubled in the past week.

2 April — Cases of COVID-19 surpass 1 million. The cases of COVID-19 are growing “exponentially in the African region,” says Dr Matshidiso Moeti.

3 April — The United States, with the highest number of cases in the world, now has more than double the number of Italy, which has the second-highest number of cases in the world.

5 April — More talks about Dr Didier Raoult, French virologist at Marseille, on the usage of malaria drugs to help Covid-19 patients. The idea is to use hydroxychloroquine, a disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug (DMARDs), in conjunction with azithromycin to prevent patients from going into the severe and critical respiratory stage, hence leaving more people who need the ventilators.

6 April — Japan is expected to declare a state of emergency as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will speak to the experts. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is admitted due to persisting symptoms. The Queen of England makes a speech to reassure the people of England. Cases in New York, the US epicentre, are dropping for the first time.

8 April — China's Wuhan ends coronavirus lockdown, but concerns still remain. Roughly 65,000 people left the city by train and plane alone, within hours of the 11-week lockdown being lifted.

10 April — This is the worst economic crisis since the 1930s depression says the head of the International Monetary Fund and that 4 out of 5 jobs have been affected by the virus, says the BBC.

11 April — US deaths toll passes 2,000 in a single day and the 500,000 confirmed cases. The death toll from COVID-19 surpasses 100,000 people but 375,000 people have recovered.

14 April — Cases of COVID-19 surpass 2 million, it took 12 days to get another million cases. U.S. President Donald Trump announces that he is cutting off the nation’s contributions to the World Health Organization, criticising the agency for mismanaging the response. For the two-year budget cycle of 2018 and 2019, the U.S. government pledged to contribute $893 million to WHO’s budget, where $237M is from assessed contributions, and $656M is from voluntary contributions. So far, 500,000 people have recovered.

17 April — During a press conference, Dr Michael Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization Health Emergencies Programme, emphasizes that there is no evidence to prove whether someone who had COVID-19 and recovered is immune from the disease.

19 April — The death toll in Europe from COVID-19 surpasses 100,000. The death rate in Europe, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, is nearly 9%.

21 April — The US is planning to suspend all immigration; it is not clear if it will go ahead. The pandemic increases the risk of famine to a ‘biblical’ scale.

April 25 — The death toll from COVID-19 surpasses 200,000 globally.

April 26 — The total confirmed cases from COVID-19 surpasses 3,000,000 people, but 890,000 people have recovered.

April 28 — The number of coronavirus cases in the United States surpasses 1 million. The number of Americans killed by COVID-19 surpasses 58,000. More Americans have died from this disease than were killed in the Vietnam War.

April 30 — Three months have passed since WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.

May

2 May — Cases of coronavirus on the African continent surpass 40,000.

6 May — At least five years of progress on efforts to control tuberculosis could be lost because of the pandemic. There could be an additional 6.3 million cases of TB globally between now and 2025 and an additional 1.4 million deaths.

7 May — Between 29 million and 44 million people could become infected with COVID-19 in Africa, and between 83,000 and 190,000 people could die in the first year of the pandemic, "if containment measures fail," according to a press release from WHO.

9 May — The total confirmed cases from COVID-19 surpasses 4,000,000.

12 May — Russia now has the second-highest caseload, following the United States.

14 May — The number of deaths from COVID-19 surpasses 300,000 globally.

18 May — Over 100 countries have backed a draft resolution to the World Health Assembly calling for an independent inquiry into the handling of the coronavirus crisis, including an impartial, comprehensive evaluation into “the actions of WHO and their timelines pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic”.

22 May — Brazil surpasses Russia as the country with the second-highest number of cases, following the United States.

25 May — WHO puts a temporary pause on its trials of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19.

31 May — The total confirmed cases from COVID-19 surpasses 6,000,000.

June

4 June — The Lancet retracts its study on COVID-19 patients using hydroxychloroquine that found the drug increased death rates and increased heartbeat irregularities.

5 June — WHO updates its guidance on the use of masks.

7 June — The number of deaths from COVID-19 surpasses 400,000 globally.

8 June — The total confirmed cases from COVID-19 surpasses 7,000,000.

11 June — The number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. surpasses 2 million.

16 June — Initial clinical trial results show that a steroid called dexamethasone can reduce mortality by about one-third for COVID-19 patients on ventilators.

17 June — WHO says it is dropping hydroxychloroquine from its Solidarity Trial.

18 June — Nature Medicine published a study finding that the levels of antibodies in recovered COVID-19 patients declines significantly two to three months after infection, which calls into question the length of immunity that survivors have against contracting the virus again.

19 June — The pandemic is in a “new and dangerous phase,” as many people are tired of staying home, and governments are eager to reopen their economies. However, the virus is spreading fast, and most people globally are still susceptible to contracting it, Tedros says during a press conference.

21 June — COVID-19 deaths surpass 50,000 in Brazil.

28 June — Globally, confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpass 10 million — only six days after the global caseload hit 9 million. The number of deaths from COVID-19 surpasses 500,000.

July

3 July — Globally, confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpass 11 million — only six days after the global caseload hit 10 million.

6 July — The United States will be withdrawing from WHO after submitting its formal notification. A study from The Lancet has demonstrated that only 5% of the Spanish people who have been infected from COVID-19 showed to have antibodies. This makes herd immunity more difficult.

7 July — Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro tests positive for COVID-19, Brazil contains 1.7 million cases (after the United States).

8 July — Globally, confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpass 12 million — only six days after the global caseload hit 11 million. It is confirmed that the United States surpass 3 million cases.

11 July — Another study, from the United Kingdom, shows that only 17% of the patients had antibodies from the COVID-19 infection after 3 months.

14 July — The American biotech firm Moderna publishes interim results from the ongoing human clinical trials of its candidate vaccine for COVID-19, finding that it was safe and provoked an immune response in all of its 45 volunteers. The company was the first to start a human trial of a potential COVID-19 vaccine.

17 July — Globally, confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpass 14 million.

18 July — The number of deaths from COVID-19 surpasses 500,000 globally.

22 July — Globally, confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpass 15 million.

26 July — Vietnam, due to new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases, has reimposed social distancing. Globally, confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpass 16 million.

30 July — It has been 6 months since WHO had declared COVID-19 a public health emergency. Globally, confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpass 17 million. For the past month, Africas has almost doubled in COVID-19 cases.

August

3 August — Globally, confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpass 18 million. WHO launches a mask challenge, encouraging people to send in photos of themselves wearing a mask.

5 August — The number of deaths from COVID-19 surpasses 700,000 globally.

6 August — Globally, confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpass 19 million globally.

7 August — Confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpass 1 million on the African continent.

8 August — A grim milestone for the United States as they surpass 5 million cases.

9 August — In New Zealand there has not been any locally transmitted case of COVID-19 in 100 days.

10 August — Globally, confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpass 20 million.

11 August — Russia grants regulatory approval for a COVID-19 vaccine. Experts are concerned about how Russia has been so quick in making a new vaccine and question its safety. The vaccine is called Sputnik V and claims it is effective, but there isn’t much information about it.

14 August — Globally, confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpass 21 million.

19 August — Globally, confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpass 22 million.

22 August — Globally, confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpass 23 million. The number of deaths from COVID-19 surpasses 800,000.

24 August — University of Hong Kong researchers report the world’s first case of reinfection of COVID-19. A 33-year-old man who had a mild case of COVID-19 in April tests positive again — infected by a different strain of the virus, calling into question the length of immunity that people acquire after they have the disease.

30 August — Globally, confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpass 25 million.

September

1 September — A new study from the New England Journal of Medicine shows that antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 did not decline within four months of diagnosis, which brings great news in hoping for a successful vaccine. The drug Kevzara from Sanofi has been halted for treating COVID-19 as adverse effects and deaths were reported. Lebanon, following the explosion from Beirut, has been estimated to increase by 220% in COVID-19 cases.

2 September — 570,000 health workers have been infected from COVID-19. New guidance from WHO is to recommend the use of corticosteroids in COVID-19 patients with severe and critical conditions and was found that dexamethasone reduced mortality among critically ill COVID-19 patients.

3 September — There are talks about how to deliver the vaccine, especially to low-income countries. Globally, confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpass 26 million.

4 September — Early phase trials of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine showed no serious side effects and elicited antibody response, according to a peer-reviewed study published in The Lancet. However, the study had several limitations, including that it was open-label and nonrandomized, only involved a small number of participants, and did not include a placebo or control group. The study also included mostly young volunteers in their 20s and 30s. Thus, further research is required.

8 September — AstraZeneca halts its COVID-19 trial due to an adverse effect, investigation in finding out the root of the cause is being done.

10 September — A global survey demonstrates that two-thirds of the children in low-income countries had no contact with teachers during lockdowns and that violence at home doubled when schools were closed.

12 September — AstraZeneca resumes their clinical trials.

18 September — The U.S. has the highest number of infections followed by India and Brazil. Globally, confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpass 30 million.

22 September — U.S. President Donald Trump says the U.N. must hold China accountable for its actions relating to the pandemic. The U.S. surpasses 200,000 reported deaths from COVID-19, which is the highest number of any country in the world.

23 September — Johnson & Johnson have started the final stage of their vaccine clinical trials. If proven effective, this vaccine might only require one dose rather than two.

28 September — Globally, confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpass 33 million and the number of deaths from COVID-19 surpasses 1,000,000.

October

2 October — U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump test positive for COVID-19. Both underwent testing after one of the president’s senior aides tested positive for COVID-19. WHO finalizes approval of a second COVID-19 rapid test kit for emergency-use listing and says it has published a call for expressions of interest for COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers to apply for prequalification or emergency-use listing.

5 October — The trial knowns as RECOVERY has shown that the drug combination lopinavir-ritonavir is not an effective treatment for patients admitted to the hospital with COVID–19.

8 October — The economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa to fall to -3.3% in 2020 due to the pandemic and may drive up to 40 million people in extreme poverty in Africa this year. Moderna releases a statement saying it will not enforce patents on its COVID-19 vaccine for vaccine manufacturers combatting the pandemic.

12 October — Johnson & Johnson temporarily pauses clinical trials of its COVID-19 vaccine. The US has demonstrated that a patient has been reinfected from COVID-19. “There are still many unknowns about SARS-CoV-2 infections and the immune system’s response, but our findings signal that a previous SARS-CoV-2 infection may not necessarily protect against future infection,” says study lead author Mark Pandori in a news release. It’s the first study to confirm COVID-19 reinfection in the United States. The first known case of reinfection worldwide was in August in Hong Kong.

13 October — According to a press release from the International Labour Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, and WHO, nearly half of the world’s workforce is at risk of losing their jobs.

15 October — Results from WHO’s Solidarity Trial has shown that the drugs remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir, and interferon had “little or no effect” on mortality, the need for ventilation, or the length of hospital stay for COVID-19 patients.

16 October — Dr Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist at WHO, during a press briefing says that countries will "need to make a call" on whether or not to use remdesivir as a treatment for COVID-19. WHO's Solidarity Trial will continue to examine other treatments, including monoclonal antibodies and new antivirals, says WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during the briefing. Dexamethasone, a corticosteroid, is the only therapeutic currently known to be effective against COVID-19.

19 October — Globally, confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpass 40 million. COVID-19 cases in Argentina surpass 1 million.

21 October — Around 100,000 people continue to test positive for COVID-19 in the Americas every day.

23 October — “We are at a critical juncture in this pandemic, particularly in the northern hemisphere. The next few months are going to be very tough, and some countries are on a dangerous track. Too many countries are seeing an exponential increase in cases, and that's now leading to hospitals and ICUs running close or above capacity,” says WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a news briefing.

27 October — In Nigeria, there are reports of mass lootings in a number of government-owned warehouses that contained food relief for people during the country’s COVID-19-related lockdown. 

28 October — Globally, confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpass 44 million, where the Americas are now over 20 million, whilst Europe have passed 10 million confirmed cases.

29 October — In Taiwan there has not been any locally transmitted case of COVID-19 in 200 days.

30 October — Groups f experts had their virtual meeting with their Chinese Chinese counterparts on efforts to establish the origin of the coronavirus, says WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a news briefing.

November

2 November — Pharmaceutical company Aspen Pharmacare, based in South Africa, has the capacity to produce 300 million doses of the vaccine in a year at its facility in Port Elizabeth. This is the first manufacturing deal for a potential COVID-19 vaccine on the African continent.

5 November — Denmark plans to cull up to 17 million minks after detecting a mutated version of the novel coronavirus on mink farms, which infected 12 people.

9 November — According to an interim efficacy analysis of their ongoing phase 3 study, Pfizer and BioNTech’s mRNA-based vaccine candidate is found to be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 among people with no evidence of previous SARS-CoV-2 infection. Globally, confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpass 50 million.

10 November — Brazil suspends clinical trials of Chinese firm Sinovac Biotech’s COVID-19 vaccine after a “serious adverse event” in one of the volunteers.

11 November — In a news release Russia’s Gamaleya Institute and the Russian Direct Investment Fund have said that the Sputnik V vaccine has shown an efficacy rate of over 90% based on interim data analysis of ongoing phase 3 trials.

16 November — Moderna announces its COVID-19 vaccine candidate has shown 94.5% efficacy, based on interim analysis from a phase 3 study conducted among 30,000 participants in the United States. Starting two weeks after a second dose, the group that received the vaccine had five cases of COVID-19, none of which was severe. Among the placebo group, 90 participants had COVID-19, including 11 severe cases. The company plans to file for emergency use authorization of its vaccine with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the coming weeks, as it awaits final safety and efficacy data from the phase 3 study. Moderna says the vaccine can be kept at standard refrigerator temperatures, as opposed to Pfizer and BioNTech’s mRNA-based vaccine candidate, which requires “ultra-low” temperatures, raising concern about cold chain supply networks.

20 November — There have been more cases of COVID-19 reported in the past four weeks than in the first six months of the pandemic, says WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a press briefing. The WHO Guideline Development Group advises against the use of the antiviral drug remdesivir for COVID-19, saying there is no evidence that it improves survival or decreases the need for ventilation. 

23 November — The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine showed 62% efficacy in preventing COVID-19 in participants given two full shots of the vaccine. However, the efficacy rose to 90% when the vaccine was given at only half dose during the first shot, followed by a full dose for the second shot, according to the interim analysis.

24 November — Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine has shown 91.4% efficacy based on preliminary data from an ongoing phase 3 clinical trials in the country, according to officials from the Gamaleya Institute and the Russian Direct Investment Fund in a press briefing.

25 November — Globally, confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpass 60 million. The number of deaths from COVID-19 surpasses 1,400,000.

30 November — Moderna announces further trial results for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, showing it to be 94.1% effective against COVID-19, and 100% effective against severe cases. The company has applied for emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

December

2 December — The U.K. government approves the COVID-19 vaccine candidate from Pfizer and BioNTech for domestic use — the first country to do so.

8 December — The U.K. begins to roll out a COVID-19 vaccination campaign, becoming the first nation to do so. The campaign, using the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, will first inoculate front-line health workers, people over 80, and nursing home workers. The U.K. has purchased 40 million doses of the vaccine, with much of it expected to arrive next year.

14 December — The U.S. begins to roll out a mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The country surpasses 300,000 confirmed deaths from the virus.

26 December — Globally, confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpass 80 million.

31 December — WHO issues emergency use validation for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, the first COVID-19 vaccine to receive one. This would help countries expedite regulatory approval of the vaccine.

2020 as a whole

On 30 January 2020 COVID-19 was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) with an official death toll of 171. By 31 December 2020, this figure stood at 1 813 188. Yet preliminary estimates suggest the total number of global deaths attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 is at least 3 million, representing 1.2 million more deaths than officially reported.

Cases, deaths and recovered patients information is from: Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU).

Note: unfortunately, who knows if certain countries are truly displaying the case number and deaths from the COVID-19. This is also dependant on the countries ability to test people to get an accurate representation of the current situation.

Published 20th February 2020. Last reviewed 1st December 2021.

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Tweeten L, Barone E, Wolfson E. A Timeline of How the Wuhan Coronavirus Has Spread—And How the World Has Reacted. Time website. https://time.com/5774366/how-coronavirus-spread-china/. Updated January 30, 2020. Accessed February 12, 2020.

Tortora GJ, Derrickson B. Principles of Anatomy & Physiology. 14th ed. New York, United States: John Wiley & Sons Inc; 2014. ISBN: 978-1-118-34500-9.

Wang C, Horby PW, Hayden FG, Gao GF. A novel coronavirus outbreak of global health concern. The Lancet. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30185-9/fulltext#seccestitle10. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30185-9. Published January 24, 2020. Accessed February 12, 2020.

WHO Authors. Novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV). World Health Organization website. https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019. Updated January 31, 2020. Accessed February 1, 2020.

ADDITIONAL SOURCE OF INFORMATION:

• Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI): New Vaccines.

• GenBank: Full genome of the 2019-nCoV.

• GISAID: Promotes international sharing of all virus sequences.

• International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV).

• National Institutes of Health.

• Self-study course from the CDC: Principles of Epidemiology in Public Health Practice: An Introduction to Applied Epidemiology and Biostatistics. https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dsepd/ss1978/index.html.