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The Covid-19 pandemic began last year in a city in central China, but has since grown to affect almost every country in the world. The virus has brought world leaders to the hospital while exposing inequality. It has posed important questions to governments and invaded the daily lives of billions. And it shows no signs of ending anytime soon.
As the death toll surpasses a million, we take a look at some of the landmarks along the way.
January 9, 2020 – First reported death
January was a big month for news: it saw the United States assassinate a top Iranian general, wildfires in Australia, and the death of basketball great Kobe Bryant in a helicopter crash.
We didn’t know it at the time, but the biggest story emerged in China, which the BBC first reported as a cluster of “mysterious viral pneumonia” cases in the city of Wuhan.
On January 11, China reported its first confirmed death from the virus – a 61-year-old man living in the city.
Chinese scientists identified the disease as a type of coronavirus, causing different illnesses from the common cold to more serious ones such as Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome).
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The virus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan
There were early signs of the kind of response that would later become common around the world: The outbreak prompted Singapore and Hong Kong to implement screening processes for travelers from Wuhan.
The virus was also feared to spread rapidly as hundreds of millions of people in China prepared to travel across the country for the Chinese New Year.
But it was not yet clear how the disease was transmitted, and health officials said no cases of person-to-person transmission had been confirmed.
At the time, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it was aware of the outbreak, was in contact with the Chinese government and was closely monitoring the event.
January 28, 2020 – 100 dead
By the end of the month, the number of victims had exceeded 100 and infections were increasing rapidly. It spread beyond Wuhan, both to other parts of China and to at least 16 countries around the world.
Some nations began sending planes to Wuhan to evacuate citizens. Meanwhile, the United States urged its citizens to “reconsider travel” to China.
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Wuhan and its Hubei province were already effectively locked in, with strict transportation restrictions in and out of the area. The wearing of masks in public was also, at this point, mandatory in some Chinese cities. A 50-year-old man, who had traveled to Wuhan, became the first person in the capital Beijing to die from the virus.
Health officials determined that the virus had emerged from illegally traded wildlife at a seafood market in Wuhan and said it could in fact spread between people. Chinese authorities said the virus was able to spread during its incubation period and before symptoms appeared like normal flu, making it difficult to control.
The outbreak was declared a global emergency by the WHO on January 30.
February 10, 2020 – 1,000 dead
Just two weeks later, the number of victims reached 1,000. More and more countries were beginning to see their first cases, but much of the world’s attention was still focused on China.
We reported that the virus had claimed the lives of 97 people in a single day there, in what was then the highest number of casualties in a day at that time. On one day in April, the US reported nearly 2,000 deaths.
At the time, the WHO said the number of new cases in China was “stabilizing,” but warned it was too early to say whether the virus had peaked. She sent an international mission to China to help coordinate a response to the outbreak.
By now, the virus had spread to at least 27 other countries and territories, but so far there have only been two deaths outside mainland China, in the Philippines and Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, in late February, hundreds of passengers had tested positive for the virus on the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan, one of many cruise ships that became Covid hot spots. A British man who had been on board the ship became the first UK citizen to die from the virus.
Around the same time that the coronavirus was given an official name, Covid-19.
March 20 – 10,000 deaths
As the number of deaths from the virus worldwide surpassed 10,000, concerns turned to Europe. The continent at that time accounted for about half of the deaths worldwide.
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The death toll in Italy, the country most affected at the time in terms of reported deaths, reached a total of 4,032. At the beginning of the month a nationwide blockade had been imposed there.
Meanwhile, China reported no new domestic cases for the second day in a row.
The number of confirmed cases worldwide was about 250,000 at this time, and more than 80,000 people are said to have recovered.
On March 19, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he believed the UK could “turn the tide” against the outbreak in the next 12 weeks. A nationwide blockade was imposed on March 24, when the death toll in the UK reached 335.
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April 9 – 100,000 dead
By now, the world seemed a very different place than it did three months earlier, and the global death toll was 100,000.
President Donald Trump warned that the United States could see up to 100,000 deaths, but denied that his administration has acted too slowly.
By April 10, New York had more cases than any other country.
By the end of September, the death toll in the United States would be more than 200,000.
Meanwhile, Europe was preparing to spend the Easter weekend under lock and key.
Boris Johnson, who tested positive for the virus the previous month, was released from intensive care on April 9. The death toll in the UK had reached almost 9,000, with more than 70,000 confirmed cases, and London is said to be the “epicenter” of the pandemic in the country.
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June 29 – 500,000 deaths
As the pandemic accelerated, a new milestone of 500,000 deaths was reached.
At the same time, lockdown restrictions were relaxed in some parts of the world, and people in the northern hemisphere turned their attention to how they would spend the summer.
The EU said it will reopen its borders to citizens of several countries starting July 1, including Australia and Canada, but not the United States.
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Passport control at Larnaca airport, Cyprus
At that time, half of the world’s cases had been recorded in the US and Europe, but Covid-19 was growing rapidly in the Americas. The virus also affected South Asia and Africa, where it was not expected to peak until late July.
The WHO warned that the worst could be yet to come and urged governments to implement the right policies.
September 28 – One million deaths
On Monday, the world reached one million deaths recorded by Covid-19. The United States, Brazil and India now account for nearly half of the total, according to Johns Hopkins University.
However, the death toll is believed to be much higher, as many cases may not have been officially reported. In June, the BBC’s analysis of death records in 27 countries found another 130,000 deaths not making headlines.
So what can we expect in the future? Right now, we’re seeing just over 5,000 recorded coronavirus deaths a day around the world, says BBC statistics chief Robert Cuffe. If that pace continues, we can expect the daily count to surpass two million in just over six months, he adds.
Health authorities have learned a lot about the virus since the beginning of the pandemic, but authorities say the increase in deaths will continue.
“We do not see signs of a slowdown in the death rate,” Nancy Baxter, an epidemiologist and director of the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, told the BBC.
“There have been over a thousand deaths per day around the world since March 18 and what appears to be happening is that as Covid-19 gets under control in one jurisdiction, it gets out of control elsewhere.
“So I think that, unfortunately, we are seeing a similar number of deaths before a vaccine is found and distributed.”
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