From Dec. 2019 to Dec. 2020: A Timeline of Coronavirus Spread

A patient in Wuhan City, China reports symptoms similar to a coronavirus infection.

The World Health Organization China Country Office is informed of a cluster of cases of pneumonia of “unknown cause” in Wuhan City, Hubei Province. In the next three days, a total of 44 cases are reported to the WHO.

Also on Dec. 31, 2019, the WHO picks up a Dec. 30 report transmitted by ProMed, an international epidemiological surveillance network, about unexplained pneumonia in Wuhan, China.

A 61-year-old man is the first known patient who has died from the novel coronavirus. There is still no evidence that the novel coronavirus can spread among humans.

Thailand reports its first case of the novel coronavirus — and the first outside of China. The patient has recently returned from Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first detected.

A man in his 30s who has just returned to Washington state from a trip to the region of Wuhan tests positive for the new coronavirus. He arrived in the U.S. two days before passenger screening was initiated.

Chinese authorities put Wuhan, a city of more than 11 million people and where the novel coronavirus was first reported, under lockdown. Bus, subway, and ferry services are suspended. Flights and trains are canceled. Residents are ordered to stay home.

United Airlines temporarily suspends some flights between the U.S. and three cities in China — Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai — due to a drastic decline in demand.

A woman from China infects a person in Germany before she begins displaying symptoms, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. This is the first evidence of people showing no symptoms appearing able to spread the coronavirus.

With the situation evolving rapidly, within a week of saying the outbreak does not constitute an emergency declaration, the WHO declares the coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.

After Wuhan, Chinese authorities shut down Wenzhou, a city of about 9 million residents some 425 miles from the current epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak. Only one member of every household is allowed to leave every two days and only to buy necessities. There are 265 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Wenzhou.

A cruise ship with 2,666 passengers and 1,045 crew members is forced to quarantine at sea off the coast of Yokohama after one confirmed case of an infected passenger. Subsequent tests reveal that at least 10 of the 31 tested people have the virus as well.

By Feb. 9, 2020, 908 people on mainland China have died, surpassing the number of deaths caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak of 2002-2003. The SARS epidemic, which also began in China, killed 774 people worldwide.

The WHO announces the official names of the novel coronavirus and the illness it causes. The virus’s name is severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and the illness it causes is the coronavirus disease of 2019, or COVID-19.

The first COVID-19 case in Africa is confirmed in Egypt. The infected person is asymptomatic and a foreigner, according to the health ministry.

More than half of the entire Chinese population is now under various forms of lockdown and travel restrictions. Restrictions include residential lockdowns, checkpoints at buildings, and strict limits on going outside.

After China reports 136 COVID-19-related deaths on Feb. 19 alone, the death toll in mainland China surpasses 2,000. However, the number of new cases a day appears to be falling.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed declares a state of emergency, even though no coronavirus cases have been confirmed in the city. He says this is a precaution as the order will expedite access to resources and personnel necessary to respond to a potential coronavirus outbreak in the city.

Germany has confirmed a total of 21 coronavirus cases. The health minister says the country is “at the beginning of an epidemic.”

A man in his 50s with preexisting conditions from Washington state is the first person in the U.S. to die from COVID-19. There is no evidence at the time that he was in close contact with an infected person.

Washington declares a state of emergency.

A total of 100,000 coronavirus cases have so far been confirmed worldwide. The WHO is calling the spread “deeply concerning” as several countries report their first cases of the disease over just a few days.

The WHO declares COVID-19 a pandemic. The organization made the assessment after two weeks during which the number of new COVID-19 cases outside mainland China has increased 13-fold, and the number of affected countries has tripled.

President Donald Trump declares a national emergency to “unleash the full power of the federal government” in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic as cases across the U.S. increase.

West Virginia is the last state to report a case of the novel coronavirus.

The 26 countries of the European Union, home to over 400 million people, announce a coordinated ban on all nonessential travel from non-member countries for 30 days. The U.K., which is no longer part of the EU, does not take part in the ban.

Italy’s death toll from COVID-19 reaches 4,032 as the country becomes the first to surpass China in number of deaths. Italy reports 627 people died of the disease on March 19. In China, 3,249 people have died from COVID-19 by March 19.

With cases of confirmed coronavirus cases Increasing from 183 to 5,151 in six days, New York City becomes the hardest hit by the pandemic in the U.S. There are a total of 8,377 reported cases in the entire state.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide more than double in a week to nearly 330,000.

The U.S. surpassed 32,000 confirmed cases, 10 times as many as the week before.

The U.S. military expands its coronavirus response effort. The National Guard is now active across the country. They are to assist state response efforts to mitigate and control the coronavirus pandemic.

Partial and total lockdowns in the U.S., India (population: 1.4 billion), and other countries now affect about one-third of the world’s population — about 2.5 billion people.

Scientists say that the coronavirus pandemic is estimated to kill between 100,000 and 240,000 people in the U.S., warning the death toll can be much higher if people don’t follow guidelines for public health measures like social distancing.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports on evidence of COVID-19 transmission from pre-symptomatic people. This would make containment much more difficult. About 12.6% of transmissions in Hubei Province, China, may have occurred before the infected person began showing symptoms. It can take up to 14 days for an infected person to show symptoms — if at all.

The coronavirus pandemic hits a grim milestone — 1 million confirmed cases. More than 51,000 people worldwide have died.

A record 6.6 million people filed new unemployment claims in the week ending on March 28, more than double the number of claims filed the previous week. Overall, more than 10 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits in March.

Gov. Phil Murphy signs an executive order, which also requires people to wear cloth face coverings unless they are under 2 years old or have a medical condition that can make breathing with a mask difficult.

New York state cumulative caseload is higher than any single country outside the U.S., at nearly 160,000. (U.S.’s cumulative caseload is 462,000 cases). Spain has reported 153,000 cases by April 10, and Italy 143,000. China, where the novel coronavirus was first detected, has reported 82,000 cases by that date.

The U.S. reaches another bleak coronavirus milestone — 100,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the fourth month since the novel coronavirus was first confirmed in the country.

Lockdowns, social distancing, travel restrictions, and other measures taken to slow down the coronavirus spread may have prevented about 500 million coronavirus infections in six countries, including China and the U.S., according to a study published in the journal Nature.

Half a million people around the world have died from COVID-19, the disease the novel coronavirus causes. About a quarter of the fatalities are in the U.S. The WHO warns that the worst of the pandemic is yet to come.

The U.S. reaches a global record for new daily coronavirus cases, reporting more than 55,000 new COVID-19 cases on July 2 in a day. The U.S. reports 55,274 confirmed cases on July 2, exceeding the previous single-day record of 54,771, set by Brazil on June 19.

The WHO acknowledges that there is emerging evidence that the coronavirus can be spread by tiny particles suspended in the air. So far, scientists have warned of spread by large droplets. The evidence of airborne spread means that transmission could not be ruled out in public settings, even when social distancing and masking is maintained and especially in crowded, closed or poorly ventilated settings, according to a WHO official.

Trump wears a mask during a visit to a military hospital, marking the first time the president is seen wearing a face covering in public. Previously, Trump has declined to wear a mask at news conferences, rallies, and other public events.

Russia announces that its health regulator has approved a coronavirus vaccine for widespread use, becoming the first country in the world to do so. The news, however, is met with much criticism by scientists across the world who condemn Russia for skipping large trials to test the vaccine’s safety and efficacy.

A 33-year-old man in Hong Kong is reported to have contracted the virus again, about 4.5 months after first being infected with the novel coronavirus. Still, little remains known about the body’s immunity to COVID-19, if any, the body develops after being exposed to the virus against the novel coronavirus once it has been exposed to it.

The U.S. announces it will no longer screen passengers arriving from other countries for COVID-19 and that international flights will no longer be required to fly into one of the 13 airports where enhanced coronavirus screening measures are carried out.

Coronavirus global death toll hits 1 million people less than 10 months after first case reported in Wuhan, China.

Trump tweets that he and first lady Melania Trump have tested positive for coronavirus and are now self-isolating. The president is 74, which puts him in a high-risk group.

More than 40 million coronavirus infections have now been reported worldwide. About 1.1 million people have died, including nearly 220,000 in the U.S.

WHO European regional director announces that the continent has become once again the “epicenter” of the global coronavirus pandemic. As many as 1.5 million new COVID-19 confirmed infections were reported in Europe in one week.

COVID-19 has now killed more than a quarter of a million people in the U.S. That is about the entire population of Buffalo, New York.

In the U.K., a 90-year-old woman becomes the first person in the world to be given the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine as part of a mass vaccination program. People who are 80 and over and who are either in a hospital or are being discharged after a hospital stay are the first to receive the vaccine in the U.K.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19, the first federally approved coronavirus vaccine in the U.S., is administered to health care workers and staff at nursing homes nationwide.

The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus tops 300,000 — the day the country begins dispensing COVID-19 shots in a campaign to stop the pandemic.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration confirms the effectiveness and safety of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, clearing a path to authorization. The potential second COVID-19 vaccine is found to be 95% effective. However, in people older than 65, the vaccine had only an 86.4% rate of immunization success.