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The dictionary definition of a pandemic is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. Up until 2019 there were only four known pandemics. That was until the very well known and unique coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Nearly four years after COVID-19 was initially discovered, there have been nearly 700 million confirmed cases, so let's go back in time to go through everything we have witnessed first hand in the past few years.
On December 31st, 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) was alerted about instances of pneumonia in Wuhan, China and this information led to the first confirmed cases of COVID-19. The Chinese government identified coronavirus or 2019-nCoV (its temporary name given at the time), as the culprit of these cases on January 7th.
A few weeks later, on January 30th, 2020, the WHO designated the fast expanding COVID-19 epidemic a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. However, the new coronavirus didn't receive its official name until the 11th of February - COVID-19.
Global health experts, governmental organisations, and the general public were unclear about how COVID-19 would spread resulting in them not being able to contain the spread of the virus effectively. Hence, COVID-19 instances surpassed 100,000 globally merely a week later. On March 11th, the WHO categorised COVID-19 as a pandemic. Nearly overnight, COVID-19 went from being a serious issue that seemed to be exclusive to China to being a worldwide health disaster. The number of COVID-19 cases worldwide reached 1 million on April 2nd.
Although the number of cases decreased during the summer of 2020, the end of summer saw an exponential rise in cases due to the virus evolving into variants such as the Lambda variant (first found in Peru) and the Alpha variant (first discovered in the UK). By September 29th of 2020, there had been 1 million COVID-19 caused deaths globally.
Vaccinations were developed faster than ever before. On the 9th of November, Pfizer and BioNTech vaccines were found to be over 90% effective. Finally on the 31st of December 2020, shortly after the Delta variant was first discovered in India, the WHO issued its first emergency use validation for a COVID-19 vaccine, resulting in the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine becoming the first to be available for use. As of March 2023, more than 5.55 billion people worldwide have received a dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, equal to about 72.3 percent of the world population.
Although COVID-19 will always live as a distant burning memory in our minds, the fact that we can walk outside without masks and live life as before shows just how far we have come.
Written by Elizza Miriam Mathew
References
Elflein, J. (2023, August 29). Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases by country worldwide 2023. Statista. Retrieved September 2, 2023, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/1043366/novel-coronavirus-2019ncov-cases-worldwide-by-country/
Herd immunity and COVID-19: What you need to know. (n.d.). Mayo Clinic. Retrieved August 31, 2023, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/herd-immunity-and-coronavirus/art-20486808
Holder, J. (2023, March 13). Covid World Vaccination Tracker. The New York Times. Retrieved September 2, 2023, from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html
Moore, S. (2021, September 28). History of COVID-19. News-Medical.net. Retrieved September 2, 2023, from https://www.news-medical.net/health/History-of-COVID-19.aspx
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