How coronavirus started and what happens next



How coronavirus started and what happens next. Over 3,117,880 people have been infected with the novel virus, with significant outbreaks in the US, Italy and Spain, and 21,678 hospital deaths in the UK and other parts of the world.

On December 31, 2019, the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) China office heard the first reports of a previously-unknown virus behind a number of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, a city in Eastern China with a population of over 11 million.

What started as an epidemic mainly limited to China has now become a truly global pandemic. There have now been over 3,117,880 confirmed cases and 217,212 deaths, according to the John Hopkins University Covid-19 dashboard, which collates information from national and international health authorities. The disease has been detected in more than 200 countries and territories, with Italy, the US and Spain experiencing the most widespread outbreaks outside of China. In the UK, there have been 161,145 confirmed cases and 21,678 hospital deaths as of April 27. The true number of infections and deaths is likely to be considerably higher.

The Chinese government responded to the initial outbreak by placing Wuhan and nearby cities under a de-facto quarantine encompassing roughly 50 million people in Hubei province. This quarantine is now slowly being lifted, as authorities watch to see whether cases will rise again. The US is now the new epicentre of the Covid-19 outbreak. As of April 29, the country has 1,012,583 confirmed infections and 58,355 deaths. In Italy, where the death toll surpassed that of China on March 19, the government took the unprecedented step of extending a lockdown to the entire country, shutting cinemas, theatres, gyms, discos and pubs and banning funerals and weddings. In the UK, the government has shut schools, pubs, restaurants, bars, cafés and all non-essential shops for at least six weeks.

On March 23, prime minister Boris Johnson put the UK under lockdown saying that police will now have the power to fine people who gather in groups of more than two or who are outside for non-essential reasons. People with the main coronavirus symptoms – a fever or dry cough – are required to stay at home for seven days while households in which at least one person is displaying symptoms should quarantine themselves for 14 days. Four days later the prime minister and health secretary Matt Hancock both tested positive for the virus – Johnson spent three nights in intensive care and then stayed at the prime minister’s country residence, Chequers to recover. He returned to work at Downing Street on the morning of April 27.

How exactly did the virus started?